Class 
Booki 




Copyright 1^^. 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 




"tPHE people in their corporate capacity are competent then and 
" then only to separate capital from politics and unite it with 
labor, to which it belongs. This proceedure is in harmony with 
a republic, and the right and only rational way to settle the indus- 
tiial problem. 

A people that can be trusted in their own political affairs 
without a King, can as reasonably be trusted in their own indus- 
trial affairs without a capitalist, and yet be kind to both King and 
capitalist. W. T. F. Smith, M. D. 



THE PEFOLES' INDUSTRIAL BUSINESS 

conBmE 

A 50GK FOR THE HOHE 

Combination Having Self-interest as a 
Center of Padiatlon 

VERSUS 



Con^petltlon Having Selfishness as a 
Center of [Radiation 



By 
W. T. F. Smith, M D. 



Trie Onlv Wag of Permanently Settling the Labor and 
the Liquor l^roDlems 

Copyright 1902 



W. O. Smith Publisher 



Salvation Army Print. 



5^' 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Kecelved 

DEC 19 ii>U4 

,1 Oopyfiijm tntry 

( /CUSi/ <V XXc. Noi 

^7-9 6 ■ 

COPY B. 



^■'M^\ 



Entered According 
To the Act of Congress 

I9f2 

By W. T. F. Smith, M.D. 



This book is dedicated 

To my comrades of the Grend Army of the Republic, who have an espec- 
ial interest in the perpetuity of our republic. 

To the public schools of America, in which it was my privilege to teaqo 
for sixteen years. 

To the medical profession, of which I am a graduate. 

To the Knights of Labor, in which, in my younger days, I was a master 
workman. 

To the Christian Church, of which I have been a member for fifty years. 

To those willing to wave forget and forgive the impositions and 
wounds that competative fighting has inflicted on both rich and 
poor, and with a gallant optimism accept it all as preparatory 
training for the higher form of civilization — the adoption of the 
People's Industrial Combine. 



??????? 

If there is no method being tried to permanently remove the 
cause of the childlike quarrel between capital and labor, is it 
not high time for men of atfairs to help, and at a point where help 
is needed? 

Is contention to forever continue between labor and its cap- 
ital, or will the sober second thought of men lead them to stop 
fighting and act with the good sense of business rivals and com- 
bine in the business interests of both ? 

If object lessons teach anything, what do j'ou learn from the 
inevitable success of combines ? 

Can you think out any good reason, Christian or political, why 
a People's Industrial Combination should not succeed ? 

If Industrialism proposes to be both permanent and progress- 
ive and to gather together all the filaments of industrial good and 
weave them into the Commonwealth of the Combine, does it not 
offer to both rich and poor a better state, and as much better as the 
whole of any good is better than a part ? 

If labor and capital are united under one management, will 
not the same splendid results follow that even now come to a like 
combination of capital ? If not, why not ? 

If so-called capital clearly includes much of labor, as it now 
does, and that from necessity, may not so-called capital include all 
labor? And vice versa, if so-called labor clearly includes much of 
capital, may it not include all capital ? 

If civil and military government are but the tools of the peo- 
ple, and as such have only a special use, and are each good and 
serviceable in their place, why should we continue to show our 
ignorance and disgrace these good tools by trying to use them 
in our industrial proceedings, for which they are not adapted ? Is 
not industry fundamental, and can it not make industrial tools 
also? 

If a people have sufficient military prowess to gain their inde- 
pendence from a king, and have brains enough to formulate and 
maintain self-government without a king, can they not now be 
trusted with their own self-interest in industrial matters without 
a capitalist ? 

If men must eat to live, is it fair to permit one man to with- 
hold entirely or dole out food as he chooses to another man ? 
Does not he who owns the food hold an unwarrantable control of 
the life of the other ? 

If you try to answer the question, why did not the Govern- 
ment, in either its military or civil capacity, continue to own and 
operate the transports after the close of the Spanish war? will you 
not discover an innate fairness in the hearts of the people, forbid- 
ding that a great nation should be guilty of competing against a 
lone Individual or a corporation ? We are fair to others, is it not 
a pity we are not so to ourselves ? 

Does not Government ownership, Government production, 
Goverumeut distribution, imply a condition of war, hence not 
suitable, desirable or practical to a condition of peace ? Is not the 
People's Industrial Combine better, in that it exactly fits all the 
conditions of peace ? 

If it is too big a job, or too long to wait for us to reconcile 
men to anv political party or religious faith — need we wait a sin- 
gle moment on this account to offer them The People's Industrial 
Combine, knowing it to be to every man's financial interest, 
friend or foe ? May it not be that this financial point settled will 
pave the way to political, social and religious friendship? 

If the rapidity of our advancement in Christian civilization is 
definitely indicated by onr willingness to co-operate in industrial 
procedures, do we not also please the Author of Christian civiliza- 
tion by the adoption of the Industrial Combine, which is based on 
the "Whatsoever ^-e would tha* men should do to you, do ye even 
so to them" ? 



TABLI: or CONTENTS. 

INTRODUTION BY DR. BOUGHTON. 

PAGE 

Introductory Chapter 4 

Letter to G. A. R 16 

What Effect Will the Industrial Combine Have Upon Morality? 23 

Letter to the Rich 27 

What Effect Will the Industrial Combine Have Upon the Press 37 

Letter to Young Men 42 

Letter to Prohibitionists 53 

What Effect will the Industrial Combine Have Upjbn Banks and 

Banking? 61 

What Effect Will the Industrial Combine Have Upon the Saloon ? 65 

Letter to the Clergy i... 68 

What Effect Will the Industrial Combine Have Upon the Church ? 78 

Letter to the Boys and Girls 82 

What Effect Will the Industrial Combine Have Up'.n Parties? 96 

Letter to the Doctors 99 

What Effect Will the Industrial Combine Have Upon the Intentions 

of Men? 106 

Letters to Lawyers 107 

What Effect Will the Industrial Combine Have Upon the Classes? 117 

Letter to Farmers 119 

What Effect Will the Industrial Combine Have Upon Christian 

Civilization? 129 

Letter to Young Women 132 

What Effect Will the Industrial Combine Have Upon the Military? 144 

Letter to Workingmen 146 

What Effect Will the Industrial Combine Have Upon Manual Labor ? 161 

Remedy 164 

Appendix ^72 



INDUSTRIALISM includes both capital and labor and places 
both under one management. It is industry "setting up" on its 
own account. Are you an Industrialist? 

While I am optimistic, I would be remiss in my duty if I 
failed to show to professional men that their co-operation aud 
comradeship is necessary to the expected success of the Peoples' 
Industrial Combine. We have got to a point where the industrial 
fate of the nation is contingent upon its sincere professional men 
as peace-makers. The so-called lab jrer and capitalist can never 
fight it out on the existing lines; an entirely different method 
must be adopted. Each has learned the other's tactics, and is pre- 
pared for any and every attack, and it seems that capital at least 
has got to understand the other so well that they do not want 
peace because strikes are more profitable. We cannot blame labor 
for striking, but when it has become for the sole amusement of 
capital, it is time for the public to protect itself. Labor is in a di- 
lemma; they may not all be quite ready to admit it, but it's true, 
all the same, and they need a friend at this very critical moment. 
Admitting that you have /? ot been asked, is it kind in you to wait 
for an invitation or formal introduction, when such an emergency 
is on like a house afire, especially when your own house is endan- 
gered ? Again, may it not be found practically your cause as well 
as theirs. Aye. may it not be really your cause more than theirs. 
I think it was Professor Jordan of Stanford University who called 
attention to the fact that bricklayers were getting as much wages 
as professors. Well, why not ? Both clearly should have all they 
need (but I will not argue this view of the question here). The sig- 
nificance that capital holds education in such contempt does not 
entitle it to your continued friendship. It is becoming plain that 
capital has no use f >r a man at all, and mor^ especially for one it 
cannot use in its business. If the public do not lay hold of this 
indusrrial problem now, I prophesy that in the immediate future 
combines will so manage that they will not need learned men of 
any profession — simply enough unskilled laborers to run the ma- 
chines (Chinamen will do, if Americans strike and annoy capital 
too much; it will be but mere pastime to break down the Exclu- 
sion Act ), and if we object, it will be but to put it to a little extra 
trouble to hire enough soldiers to keep the peace. This is the 
dreadful sequence of the uncontrolled combine, yet you know that 
capital is but a passive instrument, its combination is now being 
used as an instrument of slaughter, but it can be used as an 
instrument of righteousness, and that it seems to have been 
designed by God Himself to save the people. The "Whatsoever 
ye would that men shoule do unto you, do ye even so even .so unto 
them," in its material significance intimates a time just at hand, 
and the adoption of the People's Industrial Combine. My purpose 
will be seen, as you study with me in the difierent chapters of 
jthis book — to unite all classes in their own industrial interests, 
giving every man a chance (the competent to help the incompe- 
tent if need be) remembering that one man has returning wants 
as well as another. We must not maintain the attitude of a cold, 
critical spectator anj- longer — our hearts must warm for the man as 
a man. 



INTRODUCTORY 



I have reviewed the letters and postscript notes of Dr. Smith 
with very great interest and satisfaction to myself. All of us have 
been provoked by the imposition of wealthy corporations on the 
one hand, and by strikes on the other, and still more perplexed by 
the question, How will the growing diflferences between labor and 
capital ever be amicably settled? To put either in complete control 
would be but to grind the other to powder. Arbitration is only 
momentary in its efifects, as conditions may change with the speed 
of lightning; a telegram, cablegram or telephone is sufficient. 

Combines, though they include, as they may, all or any one class 
of interests, as all the railroads or all the coal mines, etc., serve but 
to add oppression to the already oppressed masses of the people. 
Any of us can see that these combines are a Godsend to those in 
them, but it is just as clear that it is death to those not in them; so 
other schemes of settlement have crossed our hearts and minds, but 
in all of them there was a fatal if; that is, if the other side to the 
parties in interest will agree to it. But their selfish interest being 
opposed to any and every plan, of course selfish interests carry, and 
€very present agreement is made under the protest of some, and 
the facts are we are farther apart than in the dark ages "when ig- 
norance was bliss, hence it was folly to be wise," so it seems we 
have grown apart in our financial interest about in proportion to 
the increase of our intellectual growth. Human progress has made 
phenomenal growth in the aggregate, yet while the rich are richer 
and gloat over it, the poor are poorer and are more conscious of it 
than, at any period in the history of the world. Dr. Smith has 
pointed out the fact that there is one thing, and only one thing, 
that all men alike will follow — and that is their own financial inter- 
est. This is applicable to the man worth a half a billion and to the 
pauper in the alms house. Make it to be the business interest of 
all to adopt any one thing, and you enlist the attention and co-oper- 
ation of all, from the billionaire down. What is this? He an- 
swers the common every-day business combine. Its very nearness 
makes it the more startling. Yet, like some of the most valuable me- 
chanical inventions, it is all the more marvelous on account of its 
simplicity. The Doctor's method of notifying the people, by a per- 
sonal letter, of their good fortune of having a home, and steady and 
honorable employment in the support of that home, so near as only 
to reach out their hand and accept the title, and enter into their 
possession (and that without injury to any but really to the business 
interest of all), is both politic and friendly. We iread letters of our 
own with peculiar interest and attention, and feel that we should do 
as requested; and so it is our privilege here to read the letters of 
others. Also, the repetition of the main points rivets them in our 
minds, but I commend to you, not only the end in view, and the 
method of reaching that end, but the spirit of his presentations. 
There is no mind so biased or prejudiced as to call him unfair. 
Again, when our civilization and business methods and interests 
unite, and go hand in hand, as they should, tken, instead of civiliza- 



2 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

tion having to fight its way, as it now does, Liberty will indeed en- 
lighten the world. Progress has been progressive heretofore, but 
as he so aptly says, in spite of rather than because of our business 
competition. Though he may seem drastic and merciless in his 
attack on competition, and its thoughtless adherents, yet he saves 
us from pessimism by his abounding optimism. Then he is free from 
namby-pamby methods of narty reforms. The book is delight- 
fully free from cant or repulsive sentimentalism, yet has an under- 
lying, moral philosophy which gives character a chance, that it 
cannot have under competition, to develop in both the young and 
old. 

Then, he not only makes the age of combine so delightfully 
near to us, but coming from such a new and unexepected source, 
it is like waking up tomorrow morning and beginning to act out our 
self-interest, which most writers on labor and capital have fatally 
confused with selfishness. He has pointed out that self-interest is 
necessarily broad, magnanimous and philanthropic, and fully equal 
to the task of settling the vexed question between capital and labor, 
and in such a way that it will forever stay settled; and that purely 
and exclusively on the business lines of the now present combine. 
No one letter contains all the points, yet almost any one of them 
puts the subject plainly and tacitly within easy reach; especially is 
his letter to the rich, broad, argumentative, conciliatory and con- 
vincing. All other writers on the labor question have left us with 
no explicit remedy; their agitation and vigorous denunciation have 
only caused greater vindictiveness between labor and capital and 
general unrest among the people, but he, without agitation, opens 
up a peaceable, practical solution of the problem, so near like just 
stepping over a line from a condition of privation into a home, or 
from enforced idleness, into employment self-respecting and self- 
supporting. 

Dr. Smith has struck the keynote of Christian civilization in 
taking self-interest and making a clear-cut, well-defined, rational 
and real distinction between self-interest and selfishness, with its 
discordant inharmonious sounds which come from the very bottom 
of Anarchy, Nihilism, Communism and Socialism, until we had 
about made up our minds that we had no ear for music; and as we 
look down into it, how very few would think of basing a government 
on the pure envy and selfishness of Nihilism, or even Communism, 
a little better, but yet lacking, in this, that selfishness and hatred are 
behind its every movement, demanding a division of property with- 
the intent of squandering or having the liberty to squander that 
property, on their own lusts, by holding all property in common, 
leaving the lazy, indolent and vicious to act according to their own 
will. 

Also Socialism, better than any of these by far, yet lacking in 
the apparently undiscovered difference made between selfishness 
and self-interest as a purely business matter, the difference as seen' 
between obtaining property to be enjoyed by the self alone, and 
obtaining property that another can have and enjoy with us, and 
that, to the full for both; or to put it more succinctly, to refuse to 
enjoy property until others are also served, as we do so gallantly at 
our tables. Civilization itself does not seem to be well understood. 
Let me make it plain by going back or beyond it: Smith, Jones and 
Brown, in the far West, have each succeeded in raising a band of 
horses. Thieves steal them and the men meet to take steps to stop 
it. They have no jail and they know that nothing is practicable or 
will be efficacious short of a vigilance committee. A thief is 
caught and hung on the nearest tree; horse stealing is stopped, but 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 3 

is that all? No society is formed by Jones, Smith and Brown, and 
civilization has been from that day to this an effort of the best men 
and women, to hold in abeyance the incorrigible and dangerous. 
Christianity has added to this original idea of civilization a tinge 
of meaning that has served as a kind of word euphony, yet grow- 
ing in luster until now it seems that its meaning is to be made 
available in our business dealings with one another, making civiliz- 
ation really civil and humane in its every-day application. The 
good in men has forever been trying to come to the front, and 
lead men right, and we find it in its very highest efficiency in this 
our American Nation, but selfishness still holds the reins, but only 
by its brazen audacity, doing things under the livery of business, 
competitive business, doing things that modest men should blush 
to do, but too often do; so it comes like a new revelation that our 
real self-interest (financial business) is just entering our door in the 
person of the Combine. Since we call it to mind we have always 
heard that "honesty is the best policy," but it has always been fol- 
lowed by the reflection that it keeps us poor and so we have pushed 
it from us in contempt. But the good news that honesty is compe- 
tent to make men rich without making them goody-goody Miss- 
Nancy men, and that it will make women rich without making them 
coquettish, bold, brazen, scornful or masculine, will be good news 
to all. 

The Doctor has made it so apparent that you get the most 
money by letting each man and wom.an keep what they really have, 
that all may not only get more, but the very most money, — not 
morals, not religion, not sentiment, as good as all these may be, 
but money, hard clean cash and its equivalent, property; and argues 
well that this was not practical to any civilization less advanced than 
we are to-day and that we in our progress have just now got to it. 

His plea for the home is not only unique but sincere and rat- 
ional. A home to forever keep and agreeable work to support the 
family is a heritage that must and does attract and hold us in atten- 
tion. H. J. Boughton, M. D. 




Introductory Chapter. 



In presenting for your consideration the People's industrial 
combine, as a medium of conciliation between labor and capital I 
have no apology to make for the past conduct of existing corpora- 
tions, except that they have had to compete, and like the man and 
the State, have had to suflfer loss in reputation on account of it, for 
which the corporation idea is not to blame any more than the man 
or the State. All three are either directly or indirectly victims of 
competition, and will so remain until a single combine absorbs all 
lesser combines and completely supplants competition. 

I love the man, the State and the corporation, and I will show 
my love for the man and the State by my love for the corporation. 
I love it for what it is — a gift to the man from the State. I love it 
for what it can do for this man now in need of a friend. I grant you 
that it has been misused, maligned and defamed. So has the man, 
so has the State, but I am here to defend the ideal man, the ideal 
State and the ideal corporation, and shall bring up and develop the 
ideal man and the State by giving to both an ideal corporation. In 
undertaking to build anything it is necessary to have the completed 
structure in the mind, and if I do not succeed in showing corpora- 
tions to you as it appears in its beauty to me, you must not for a 
moment suppose that it has no beauty rather that the fault is mine 
in not successfully bringing it out. I hope I can by candor and 
spirit of fairness cause you at least to suspect that there is a treas- 
ure for you and I in the corporation idea and that we need not to 
be rich to prospect for it. Our failure to get any relief through 
well managed politics has but prepared us for independence as a 
whole people in our corporate capacity. This combine idea as I 
shall now call it is not only beautiful in its conception but it is pos- 
itive and progressive, and not one that can be brushed aside with 
"lofty indifference or cool disdain." It demands a hearing on its 
own account. It is not the product of imagination. The combine 
is a present and acknowledged fact. The crisis is on. Shall we 
allow corporations to capture us? Or shall we take them, appro- 
priate them, use them? What will we do? We must answer, wc 
cannot evade the answer. 

The fact that trusts exist is notorious and their character is uni- 
versally understood. Let me say at the outset that the steady march 
of Christian civilization has brought us up against this red sea and 
to a point where labor and capital must be under one peaceable 
management, we can turn neither to the right or left, the Egyptian 
wolf is after us. We must find a way to go forward and we have 
found it in this combine idea. 

The childish, "You shan't do this," and "You shan't do that," 
the anti here and the anti there, is not applicable, and belongs to a 
past age. Political negatives are out of harmony with the positive 
industrial necessities. We are no longer children but American 
men, active business men, men of afifairs, and must become enthu- 
sed with the "let there be no step backward." We are only safe in 
going forward. 

Men seek to gratify their desire for food and drink by a method 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 5"- 

requiring the very least exertion— that's perfectly right but the mis- 
take that some men have made, has been to compel another to do 
their share of the world's work rather than by co-operation to 
reduce the work and to a point where it would be but agreeable, 
healthful exercise. Again we speak of capital as though it were 
a something distant and apart from labor. Capital is only stored 
up food or some passive instrument. Does a family store up fruit 
to starve themselves? — or to feed themselves? Does society, rep- 
resenting the greater family, store up food to starve the family or 
to feed it? Capital being a passive instrument of any kind and 
so is all right and food is all right, but they are intended for all the 
family, then the more food, fruit, capital stored up, the richer tlie- 
family in the real necessities and comforts of life, and so contribut- 
ing to the self-interest of all. So we can see no chance foir a quar- 
rel with this clear definition in view. I conclude also that capital 
and labor are both necessary to a completed industry; if so can any 
man assign a just reason why they shall longer remain under separate 
management. 

Let labor-saving machinery go on unhindered and reduce 
exertion and increase production until labor fades out into grateful 
exercise and a chance to work will be accorded as an act of cour- 
tesy rather than a hardship or humiliation — such are the possibil- 
ities of the industrial combine, but it has more in it than a method' 
of business, a principle involved is that civil government can do no 
more for industry than to authorize it to act for itself as a corpora- 
tion This is in accord with higher law, even God can do no more 
to save a man, a free, moral agent, than to authorize him to act 
for himself. 

I can have no hard words to say against collectivism. I rather 
seek to induce all the isms to accept the ideal of the combine. I 
grant you that the conduct of many of the combines have been and 
are unfair and why? Because of and for exactly the same reason- 
that your city, State or nation cannot be fair and be compelled to 
get down and compete in industry or fight like cats and dogs and' 
call it business. The industrial combine can eliminate competition 
and stop the fight. It may not have occurred to you that the dis- 
tinction is important whether the individual own property as an 
individual or the nation own enmass, but it really does, even admit- 
ting that the Government could legally own productive property, 
(which it cannot). 

We observe that the nation deals with the individual, civil gov- 
ernment deals with and protects the individual citizen in his- 
rights. The Christ that gives a definite name to our civilization 
deals with the individual, so society in trying to think out a way to 
solve this labor problem must needs recognize the individual as 
being justly entitled to the highest possible prominence in indus- 
try, that of individual ownership of property, and so be the better 
able to maintain his identity through life and not become lost in the 
mass of Government ownership. The Government seemed to have 
been conscious of this fact, that it could not own productive prop- 
erty, so it definitely devised a wa}', the way of corporation, antici- 
pating very apparently so it seems to me the requirements of society 
in their industrial relations and exactly suited too, and able to come 
to our relief in this emergency. So we argue that industry must 
arrange its own affairs in its own way as all our industrial interests 
must be the same. Clearly if the matter involved is industrial, 
surely it must be adjusted by industry. Industrial combines have 
two distinctive ideas that we wish the people to appropriate and use: 
first, co-operation of mind and muscle in producing a maximum in. 



"6 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

eveiry department of industry. This, desirable as it is, would be of 
but little value unless a second, economy, were standing ready to 
receive this maximum of production, fresh from the hands of co-op- 
eration of efifort, and to use it without loss in the interest of those 
who produce it. These two ideas depend upon self-interest (which 
represents the industrial as self government does the political), 
which has been almost covered up by the rubbish of selfishness. 

Self-interest is the central and most fascinating object in the 
combine idea. That such an arrangement can be made with another 
that my real business interest will become and remain his real busi- 
ness interest, amounts to a revolution in the world of business 
affairs, yet this is just what the combines do and teach, and so are 
appropriately called trusts. As a matter of simple justice, and in 
the very nature of things, the advantages must accrue to the stock- 
holders, and I only express a fact when I say that no revelation has 
ever come to the world of business with a tithe of the benefit to you 
and I, rich or poor, as the combine's idea of self-interest, not only 
in precept but also example, if put in actual practice; a principle of 
business action going out from us, first, last, and all the time, that 
it may bring back to us the very greatest possible returns. This is 
the actual business common sense, now being exemplified by the 
combines all around us, and yet we have been blind to the fact that 
what they are doing for their stockholders is not only possible for 
us to obtain for ourselves, and that not only at the end of a long, 
tedious, doubtful struggle, but rather is ours now by right of pro- 
duction, and coupled with citizenship and while you read this book, 
you can mentally declare your intentions, and after a little planning 
we can practically apply for our incorporation papers and enter into 
our own combine, our own inheritance, if you please, each of us 
eligible to all the rights of stockholders. I am not so presumptive 
as to presume that all or any great number of these prospective 
stockholders will take my statement of the above facts serenely 
at first or as a sufficient reason for their personal indorsement, or 
grounds for immediate action; so we desire to enlist your atten- 
tion and explain as well as we may be able, feeling sure that all of 
you, when courteously spoken to, as business gentlemen and ladies, 
will see in the combine the real spirit of enterprise, coupled with 
your own individual self-interest. 

I have offered to me, in my undertaking, a long list of grievances 
of deep wrongs that must be righted or forgiven, of business false- 
hoods and abuses that have become accepted as business facts and 
usages and in some cases even become business axioms, which must 
be met, but my methods of meeting them will be progressive, and 
I shall avoid negations, arguments of already accepted facts and 
shall, by offering you at once the new induce you to voluntarily 
give up the old gladly and willingly for something better. Such is 
my abounding faith in the position I now take, that I can well afford 
to be fair — yea, even most liberal, knowing that I do not need, by 
laborious arguments, to recommend the combine idea, but rather to 
only set it up and clean off the rubbish and bring out the lineaments 
of face and feature and it will recommend and speak for itself. I 
have chosen to take a most optimistic view of the world of business, 
past, present and future. That I may be able to hold the most sup- 
erficial reader long enough to be convinced, I must not argue but 
present the most prominent and interesting facts and I will endeavor 
to so present the truth that it may indeed be "more wonderful than 
fiction," and yet try and not be tiresome to either of the extremes 
of society, both of which (bear in mind) I must necessarily reach — 
•it is expedient, therefore, that we shall reach and entertain first, so 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. T 

that we may converse pleasantly as we proceed. Permit me ta« 
request you that like to read fiction, to read "Fell in Love- 
with His Wife" by that companionable author, E. P. Roe. Read- 
it to get an inspiration. From the analogy of the marriage relation 
between the people and their own industry, as foreshadowed by the 
lesson of the combines existing all around us, and ready to be and 
really are our own for the claiming, I am the better pleased to have 
you startled by the close proximity to so good a fortune. See in 
his readable romance the contract made before the justice of the 
peace — ours at the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and 
after an odd and enforced estrangement for a few years — ours for 
a century and a quarter. How naturally easy it was to adjust legal 
proceedings when once the consummation was mutual. Reference- 
to this love story is made here on account of its analogy teaching 
a lesson that may seem incredulous to some, yet who cannot be 
gained in any other way than through a story. My desire is to turn 
the attention of all to the industrial combine. But what need of 
fiction to enlighten the American people, or to induce them to adopt 
an instrument now in every day use and recommended by all who- 
use it. Stop here long enough to ask yourself why should it be 
thought a thing incredible that we the governing power in America- 
should own and control our own industry? Ah, it's worth your 
-while to read my book from beginning to end to see how much 
can be said to induce every class to adopt the combine; if it can 
relieve don't you want to know it? The power to create riches, 
may become just as much a part of American virtue as the power 
to create good government, so I come to you with a definite propo- 
sition for all the people to incorporate for purposes of business jusfe 
as any other incorporation; then all the advantages of combination 
•will accrue to all the people for all will be stockholders. 

I am mindful that there has been great severity of expression 
used by what has been known as labor on the one hand against 
what has been known and personified as capital on the other, and,: 
vice versa, and as aggravating to both as it has been useless. Such, 
have been pleasant to the ear of some, perhaps, but never decided 
an issue, fighting is impolite. We find also that the shirking or 
neglect of duty on the part of and what really and emphaticalljr- 
belonged to the business world, our business self-interest as seen 
in the physical health of our citizens, has become so appalling that, 
morals and religion have been called out of their proper sphere to 
take this purely business matter up, and have been thus made the 
subject of ridicule and a byword; so that now if we were called upon. 
to mention three of the most unpopular words in our language, we 
would without hesitation say, labor, prohibition and reform— all 
good and very good in their place, but as "matter out of place 
becomes dirt," so have these become unpopular, and there is nothing:- 
to be gained by longer denying the fact. I speak plainly but kindly^ 
as a man may do to his friends. 

Again, my observation, both in and out of the school-room for.- 
I was sixteen years a teacher, is that the teacher who continually 
says "don't" is a failure. 

Action is a real relief. Labor, if agreeable, is known by another 
name, exercise. Our nation has the "go" in it— we make money as- 
individuals, but strangely enough a few get it; labor takes it cheer- 
fully, hoping by a repeated and greater effort to make some more^ 
yet the other gets it again, and we try again, but finally say "It isn't 
fair." and strike. But, I ask again, "What are we going to do 
about it?" There seemes to me to be only just one rational thing to- 
do, to supplant the combines by the people's industrial combine and 



•8 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

thus enter into the possession of and direct all of our own industries 
then these experts will see this real self-interest and so use their tal- 
ents as financiers to lift up all the people and themselves among 
them. That seems reasonable, you Say, if they can be persuaded; yes, 
and we all say is most desirable and so is worthy of an honest studied 
and diplomatic effort. We should continue to be progressive as a 
nation, so we must encourage not only our producers, but qui;, so- 
called financiers also for their self-interest is the same. .We "have 
been successful so far on account of the energy of our people — wc 
must not, we need not restrain their energy, only direct it into chan- 
nels where it will do the greatest good for all of us. Do you notice 
that the objections to the combines come from those who are not 
in them, and largely because they are not in them — if we were in 
them and enabled to controll them our self-interest would be allied 
with them. 

. You may see and interpose many dif^culties and hind'erances, 
to a combine vast enough to include all the people, but this book 
is written to help you to see all these difficulties yet more clearly, 
so that you may be the better able and fully competent to remove 
them. We must know the facts, so that we may valiantly and loy- 
ally and legally meet them; and I will not willfully dodge or fail to 
meet a single objection to the immediate formation of a combine. 
Talk as they may the masses believe in the combine though they may 
say alas, it's not for me. but let it be our business to persuade those 
who are honestly or willfully or for any reason opposed to the com- 
bine, either to turn in and help now or keep still while we proceed 
and join us later. 

Boys and girls at school are not persistently contrary because 
they want to be obdurate; as teachers and directors we must have 
■diplomacy suf^cient to smooth them down the right way, pleasantly 
and for their own self-interest and ours as well, aye, we are all chil- 
dren of a larger growth and the very best way to get along with us 
children of any growth is to let us do as we please. When we 
reflect that self-government is "doing as we please" in political mat- 
ters, can we not trust ourselves to be turned loose in industrial mat- 
ters also? The maxims of self-government ennunciated by our fore 
fathers, the suggestions made, the rules laid down, were no doubt 
very high sounding to some, it was questionable then whether a 
stable government could be raised to such a plane as a trusting of 
the common people, sufBce to say here it has been done and so far, 
proved successful, but we still view with alarm the effect of an old 
wT)rld poison "the survival, of the strongest" working its appalling 
effect through the veins of our industry thus attacking our self-gov- 
ernment, so that we are compelled to admit that competition in busi- 
ness must go or self-government must fail and competing combines 
is not a remedy. 

As we see ourselves as individuals or little combines champing 
the bit like a spirited horse, as if inviting some one to get on and 
hold the reins to keep us from running away with ourselves, or as 
producers from stealing our own productions if you please, is it any 
wonder that some skillful men do get on and work us for all we are 
worth? Let us all get out of such ruts and get a clear conception 
of and then adopt self-interest as a center of business proceedure; 
then we can trust each other as implicitly in industry as we do in 
self-government. 

Selfishness and self-interest may have been a little mixed in our 
past history, but we have now come to the parting in the way, let 
us turn tQ. the right and leave selfishness in industrial business rela- 
Ttions and adopt self-interest, as our fathers left monarchy and 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 9. 

adopted self-government, over a century ago, can we> Yes for 
combines are now doing it. ' 

Exercise is considered healthful only when occupied with its full 
reward, that is, to all its productions. Exercise becomes work when 
It gets only a part of its productions; that is wages or partial 
dividends; exercise becomes menial labor when some other fellow' 
gets It all and simply feeds us that we may work for him another 
day. Do you begin to see why the reformer that stands up and' 
talks so fluently about the dignity of labor is unpopular with the men 
who labor? The dignity is not in the labor, it is in each doing 
his or her faiir share. My reason for referring here to Prohibition is 
to later on show that what we shall eat and what we shall drink 
must very naturally become the studied business of a properly 
appointed board of health and with power to act and direct and this 
power can only be given it by a legal business combine, a combine 
whose real business interest it is to see that every man, woman and 
child IS at their highest physical efficiency, able to do their fair share 
of the combine's work. The fact that a man here and there can, 
carry a hod every day and yet live longer than another who carries 
no load doesn't prove anything. The fact that one man can load up 
with whiskey and yet live longer than a teetotaler doesn't prove 
anything. We must needs go deeper or at least first get onto know- 
able grounds, and grounds that touch our present and prospective, 
ouir immediate and remote business relations, the relation of the physi- 
cal man to business affairs, as well as the moral character and true- 
manhood. 

Now, as we all know, it can be nobody's business if a man 
chooses to kill himself with 40-rod whisky, or so wreck his body that 
he becomes a public charge. We do take care of him as a pauper but 
why let him get so low? To be sure some kind-hearted woman 
may come along and tell him he oughtn't to do so— so he resolves 
to quit, but "the road to hell is paved with good resolutions," or 
an affectionate clergyman persuades him to sign the pledge, he does 
so, but a man weak enough to get drunk is not strong enough to 
keep a pledge, or a Salvation Army man recommends salvation— 
if he gets it, it is efficacious, but there is the rub. Do you say pessi- 
mism? These are all right, but they are not enough; a secular 
tribunal is necessary to secular law; moral suasion is not 
enough. The Board of Health, backed by law, must come to his res- 
cue. Place a man in pleasurable environments, and he loves to enjoy it 
and so needs all his senses. If a man works six oir eight hours in a 
dark mine give hi,ni the variety of an ideal home as good as the doc- 
tor's or the lawyer's, and he will not take narcotics to get a glimpse 
of green swards and flowers and sunshine; he can have all these with- 
out the hallucination of whisky, a man going to an entertainment 
does not take a sleeping powder, we must not ignore the fact that the 
only time millions of laboring men can feel that they are really living 
is when they can get away from their real life by going on a drunk. 
We could not blame a man for this if he were living in hell, but 
remember narcotics will not be needed in heaven; let us combine and 
by co-operation make earth a place of beauty and a joy forever and 
without whisky. 

It's an old story, but a new victim of suicide the other day in an 
Eastern city leaving a pathetic will: "I bequeath to my wife a broken 
heart, to my children the fact that their father fills a drunkard's 
grave, to my brothers qnd sisters the record of a misspent life, to 
father and mother such misery as they alone, can comprehend, to 
society a character they helped me to ruin," Do you tell him to. 
brace up, break away from it and be a man! Why mock him, he can- 



"1.0 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

not. he has tried it, taken the pledge, resolved and re-resolved and 
now dies the same. Is society helpless? Yes, and will ever be, until 
the business combine takes a business grip in the interest of humanity. 
You can see that in the penitentiary this man could not get drunk 
neither would he in a beautiful home of his own, if he could not, 
buy whisky. Shame on the father, mother, brother or sister for mak- 
ing poison and setting it where innocent children (of any age) play 
and then try to excuse themselves (when the little one of any size 
or se:: comes staggering home poisoned) by saying I told them not 
to touch it. In the name of injured innocence what did you make 
it for? Because you had nothing better to do? Then by a little 
definite planning of a business combine we will give you something 
better to do. A combine like the Standard Oil can buy out and 
pour out every gallon of beer or whisky and fill kegs, barrels, tanks 
etc., with Standard Oil in a night and business go on at the old stand 
next day just the same and nobody drunk. The people in their 
co-operative capacity can get rid of whisky and it's not only the best 
way and that by the consent and co-operation of whisky dealers 
themselves. There is another view: A farmer raises grapes or 
barley, sells his product for all he can get, as there is now no guiding 
hand, the blame is not all there; a winery or distillery distills 
it, the blame is not all there; the saloon sells it, the blame is not all 
there; the city and general government tax it to almost half of its 
wholesale price, the blame is not all there; aye, but the blame is on us 
all, and because we have no plan, no combination of business men 
whose real business interest it is to have every debauchee up before 
a board of health, and if he is not physically able to do his part as 
a lawyer, a doctor, a banker, a statesman, a machinist, a farmer, 
etc., to befriend the man — I emphasize man, we must hew to the line 
and let the chips fall where they will, but save the man. It is to 
/he proposed combine's self-interest and in a business sense, to make 
men strong, able-bodied men as well as manly men morally. Let 
positive business settle us on a firm foundation, then and then only 
can we be kind, for equal justice is kindness. Do you begin to see 
why the reformer who preaches prohibition is unpopular when we 
know that no matter how good the intentions are, he has not 
grasped the whole situation and it will not positively prohibit 
under existing business methods. The combine, as a business 
corporation, is backed with authority; but it can afford and has the 
financial ability to be fair, and if we want a man to quit a nefarious 
business, we give him something better to do we don't turn him out 
to starve, but we treat him as a gentleman should be treated, buy 
his wares and do the best we can with them. We must be fair with 
liquor men, rich men, all men, and we can be. We must control 
masterfully but kindly. 

The combine in operation will have only a purely business sig- 
nification, but in working up the physical man to his highest per- 
fection, we will give the moral man and the religious man a fair 
chance to develop also. 

If we look around us at existing combines, we will be convinced 
of another fact, that is, that a combine can run its own business, 
and also the greater its magnitude the less the opposition will be and 
the more easily it seems to do it; so with this pointer we need not 
fall down or even stagger in the presence of the magnitude of the 
industrial combine, though it does include every atom of productive 
property in the nation. (No other than productive property is 
included in a combine — homes are not productive property, hence 
not included). I am not nearly so much concerned, however, about 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 11? 

the abilities possibilities and practicabilities of the formation and 
operation of the proposed industrial combine, as I am concerned about 
bemg able to arouse the people to action so engrossed have they 
become I believe if we, the people, want it, that the ground will be 
firm under our feet every step of the way to it; but admitting a 
movement to be feasible and moving it, are two different things 
even m progressive America. "Bacchus is willin' " is not sufficient- 
— existing combines were not formed in that way. We are to get 
something, m return mind you, and we want to begin while we read' 
this line to be too honest, too proud, too dignified, and too manly 
to want something foT nothing. Act out vour self-interest and it 
will carry you to it, and it ought not to be difficult for sons whose 
fathers were brave enough to carry self-government into effect to 
now carry industrial self-interest into effect under that selfgovern- 
ment. I wish, especially, to correct the delusion that all wealth, 
is the privilege of one class of men and ultimately of one man That 
may seem like liberty for that one man, but where do you and I 
come in? (This version is both wrong and disloyal and is the act- 
ive cause of all our labor disputes). If he waves old glory all by 
himself, what will you and I do for a little flag?— yet this is just the 
awkward dilemma that self-government, a republic politically, and an. 
absolute monarchy industrially, has finally got us into. Yes, we are 
free from the English monarchy and have adopted its antithesis in 
the form of our government, (ours is a republic), but listen; still we 
hold on to and practice the monarchical form, 'monarchical idea of 
industrial business, just as though self-government was completely 
exhausted, fagged out, ingenuity all gone, and we had to lie back 
on the bosom of monarchy to get nourishment to keep life in our- 
little body politic. Rather self-government is entitled to an indus- 
trial system of its very own and one in harmony with its basic or 
fundamental idea, an industrial system that operates for the people 
and not for a king. Why, bless you, it looks like we had cut loose 
from the King of England and had gone into the business of manu- 
facturing kings on our own account. I think this is small business, 
for a republic, don't you? Why not go on and carry out the work 
so well begun and decree that when one of our little kings gets to 
be worth a million we will say he is of age and give him a little ffag 
and let him set up for himself, aye, we will shovS^ that competitive 
business methods are not only monarchical, hence unfit for a repub- 
lic, but that they help those only who need no help (who are brainy- 
enough to get along, like a Jew, in any government or without any 
government) and annihilates those of us who do need help. If we 
aire really married to a republic, let us quit flirting with monarchy 
— a family row is already brewing all over the nation on account 
of it. Talk and think as you please there is only one remedy and that 
is an industrial business combine of all the people. 

While not opposed to the honest efforts of both men and women 
to lead others to an active Christian life, I believe a man can be fair 
in business dealings, whether he is a pronounced Christian or not. 
The church has no "corner" on the golden rule(it's purely a business 
rule) arid when it once dawns upon us that self-interest is and should 
be received and taught and lived up to, then each of us, saint or sin- 
ner, may get the best material results out of this life, and that 
without reference to any life beyond. 

The real object of production, is, and of right ought to be, 
that others may enjoy what is produced equally with us, and we 
equally with them. "True happiness was born a twin," this we- 
believe, is the native impulse of the human heart, and if we find a 
condition at variance with this, it has been taught by an enemy, and. 



12 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

we may repudiate it if we will. 

We need not wait until everyone becomes willing to adopt 
industrial self-interest any more than our fathers waited until every- 
one was ready and willing to adopt poFitical self-government; but 
we do need to begin to be fair ourselves with every shade and con- 
dition of men and women, and persuade kindly, conciliatorily and 
discretely, and thus exemplify in our own life what we would have 
them become. A retaliation Dy labor against capi'al or vice versa, 
makes us feel mean, even if we do get even. We can exhibit the 
spirit of magnanimity, and kindness will be met by kindness and we 
can very speedily move on and up until inherent self-interest will be 
not only written in our hearts and characters, but crystallized into 
statute law, and that for the mutual benefit of the timid doubter, 
or the now indififerent to his own interest, as well as the progressive 
up-to-date wide-awake advocate of the combine idea, be he e ther 
Christian or infidel. 

So you see that the industrial combine may not take the clergy- 
nTan's calling away from him, but rather enable him to be doubly 
efficient, adding pleasure to this life and hope for life beyond. 

A people's trust or combine is the only remedy powerful enough 
to avail. Trusts have coane to stay. We did not comprehend them 
at first, but now we know them better. A trust as a principle of 
economics, is sound and its application when applied in the interests 
of all rather than a part of the people is incontrovcrt ible So please 
follow me through as I try to let the light in, that it may shmc on 
the way from start to finish. I must also remind you ihat ta y reading 
is not the chief object, but rather to inspire to immediate action; 
for whether one sees in the future, calamity or prosperity, we will 
show you that co-operation of effort in securing the combine and 
in making it (the law) a rule of action, a basis of operation will both 
avert a possibility of national calamity, and make industrial prosper- 
ity more prosperous. We will show that the rich individual need it 
and when they comprehend it, will not oppose it; and also that the 
poor must have it to preserve their personal individuality that the 
wise will see in it self-preservation, which is said to be the first law 
of nature, and the ignorant, an open door to knowledge. Chris- 
tians may then be consistent in business and teach unblushingly the 
person and precepts of Him who said, "If I be lifted up I will draw 
all men unto me." 

Wealth in the possession of a few is inconsistent with every phase 
of life. Wealth produced by all and spreading its benign benefits 
evenly over all, is within our easy reach. You need not join any 
party, new or old, you need not suffer privation in the transient 
stage of procedure. A combine is formed among business men 
now easily and works no hardship to any of the parties con- 
cerned, but rather a real benefit to all of them; the very same 
methods, rules and regulations extended so as to include all the 
people and all productive property is ours for the taking, and is 
as feasible as a billion dollar combine; and the man that can suc- 
cessfully manage it with positive opposition, what can such a man 
not manage when once the opposition is taken away! No final set- 
tlement between capital and labor is possible except on this basis. 
Self-interest as a principle and combination as a method of business. 
Any forward movement, if on the wrong road, leads farther and far- 
ther astray, so reform in industry is a misnomer. We must take a 
new center, self-interest, and radiate from that. 

Amendments added to amendments are also irrelevent. It takes 
a substitute to substitute the principle of combination for or instead 
of the principle of competition, this is the multum in parvo of the 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 13 

-whole matter. I have sought to make every letter or chapter 
^significant in itself, but yet not complete; and if in reading all my 
letters and postscript notes you find me repeating, you must remem- 
ber that it is the privilege of a letter writer to repeat to different 
friends a matter of real interest to all. This is why I have adopted 
letter writing to you and not about you, hoping that your attention 
can be thus gained and your active co-operation enlisted by these 
personal letters that is to the classes to which you belong, better and 
more certainly than by any other method. 

I am conscious of two facts: that I have not exhausted this 
most interesting subject, and also that all the people will not be in- 
terested in all that I say but believ/e all will be fascinated by some 
one thing that I have to say for I have sought to touch everybody 
where they really live and so arouse all the pleople. 

We are optimistic, because we believe tremendously that every 
true American wants to do right. 'To be sure, "hope long deferred 
maketh the heart sick," so if we can, we must get at the real cause 
at once, and I now offer a specific that commends itself — so that by 
having the text, a million people can mount the rostrum and preach 
their own sermon and can practice just what they preach. 

It has been my studied care to abbreviate as much as was at all 
permissible in all these letters, preferring to enlist the best thinkers 
and writers as well as expert mechanic artisans, etc., to take up and 
carry forward, answering the question, What would the combine do? 
These men are fully competent in their various departments, and 
so I gladly rely on them to bring out the very best methods of pro- 
cedure, who, after having adopted the new center (self-interest), and 
having forsaken the old center (selfishness), we can then trust 
lawyers to bring the best laws or frame laws the best- suited to 
develop and maintain us in our advancing civilization. We can trust 
the banker and master minds in financeering to bring us the very 
best financial system and just adapted to a republic in this combine 
age, and we can all trust the skillful agricultural horticultural 
expert to manage general farming, fruit-growing, gardening, all so 
as to produce the very most for the labor employed. We can trust 
the merchants to adopt ways and means, and to furnish the most 
for the least and just the goods needed. Now that each family 
have employment and sufficient money to buy with, and it being 
their self-interest and they having the ability to pay, there will be 
no bad debts. We can trust the great army of men engaged in 
transportation to bring from far and near and take our surplus pro^ 
duction to those wanting them both foreign and domestic, as they 
have already learned the paths of trade, let them as gladly and un- 
derstandingly travel them. We can trust the doctor on theory and 
practice of medicine as well as hygiene, he being educated for these 
two purposes, and so we get the best suggestions of the best minds 
in all the callings, so it is entirely better to state the problem, "Given, 
the people's industrial combine to find the highest eflficiency of my 
own trade or profession in it." It's no venture to trust to the decis- 
ion of such self-interested men. The proposition is to simply carry 
out the well-established idea and common-sense precepts of the com- 
bine into society as a whole, and wherever I have failed to reason 
well, you that I cheerfully admit to be more competent, being 
specialists in your line, must take up the proposition and supply 
what is lacking, and the combine will be equally efficient to the 
■whole people as it is now to a part only of the people and to become 
and continue to be an aggregation of the best thought of this and 
the coming ages. This combine is congealed society, and to be 
actuated 'by self-interest, be trustworthy yourself, never mind the 



14 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

other, but only let him do the same. 

Another observation, if you but stop to think about it, is that 
dividends take the place of wages naturally in a combine, so the com- 
bine will practically do away with wages, and wages you will observe 
is all that labor and capital is quarreling about. Will not the com- 
bine stop the quarrel? I also cling to the Home for all, with the 
fond tenacity, not only because it is humane and the best financial 
investment that society, through its business combine, could possi-_ 
bly make, but also because it is so easily understood by the listless, 
and we must as society pity and care for the obtuse. Their environ- 
ments, the past competitive methods, or rather absence of methods, 
of business, for which society stands convicted, have made many of 
them enlist in the "don't-care brigade." But we can now reassure 
them with HOME! and they will take a new lease of life, and it is- 
to our interest that they should, and it is certainly to their interest 
also. There is no denying the fact, we are in a strong business 
sense "our brother's keeper." There is a whole lot of religion in 
fair business dealing. The Bible and the Home are near kin. The 
Bible rriight be accepted with a home, but rejected without it; 
having both (and we can have, if we will), which should the Chris- 
tian ofTer to give first; read Christ and see. I appeal to your thus 
enlightened conscience, if it does not seem like offering a stone to 
the homeless when he asked you for a fish; it has seemed so to me. 
Give him a home first, that he may accept the teachings of the Bible 
also. But if we will stop to look at it fairly, we cannot afford to be 
indifferent; it is for our own self-interest; and now that the combine 
opens up a business way it is cruel treachery if we longer refuse. 
You that are competent to read these lines or care enough to hear 
them read are responsible to yourself and to society. 

Assuring every young couple a home at marriageable age will 
go a long way towards settling the chastity question. 

What I shall say to capital is not what the wage slave has pro- 
posed to do to the hated capitalist, but what a friendly industrial 
combine proposes to do, friendly to both laborer and capitalist. We 
can surely become the architects of our own fortunes, as well as of 
the poor and incompetent if we will. The laborer, by extending a 
friendly hand, it will be caught and he be lifted up as if by magic, 
for such is the ability of co-operated effort. My arraignment of 
competition, planless business, would be an innocent affair and abso- 
lutely insipid, as such arraignments have always been, if I were not 
to go a step farther and put something better in its place. A 
drowning man is justifiable in holding onto a plank until he can get 
a lifeboat and so men have not been so much to blame for holding on 
to competition. But what are we to think of a man now who delib- 
erately chooses to stick to his plank and make fun of this lifeboat 
on account of its color or of the personnel of its crew. 

It is practically impossible to discuss the industrial question with- 
out incidentally touching morals and religion, yet for good and 
sufficient reasons the combine must be discussed from a business 
standpoint. Sam Jones' "Quit your meanness" may be good advice, 
but something else must be just at hand, for men must have some- 
thing to do. Give them plenty of the good, and even so-called 
mean men will prefer it, never fear. "Speak to the people that they 
go forward" is the language of God, we believe, through the com- 
bine. If there is anything progressive in existence, it is seen in these 
private combines, which are forerunners an earnest of our posses- 
sions and of the indiistrial combine, which is even now ready to be 
inaugurated. 

I have noticed but briefly in this introductory chapter points 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 15 

that will be discussed more fully in the different letters to the classes 
and in the postscript notes. I recognize this fact, that our people 
are intensely busy; no time to read or think, except on the fly. A 
boiled-down assertion catches them, rather than an extended argu- 
ment. If a thing has been tried and succeeded, they accept it and 
care but little for the reasoning that leads up to it. The broad asser- 
tion of a fact like the PEOPLE can combine, and in their corporate 
capacity can positively settle all strikes and lockouts, appeals to the 
flash-light taste of this intense age. 

We do well to take people as they are. To go forward is better 
than to stop and re-form; substitution is better than prohibition; 
co-operation is better than fighting; voluntary exercise, coupled with 
necessary dividends, is better than menial labor for wages. Let each 
one of us take up some watchward that appeals to us and use it in 
telling efifect on all suitable occasions, answering all questions relat- 
ing to industry by, "What would the people's combine do for us if 
it were in charge now? Your love of ease, or indifference, or 
penury, or incredulity, may cause you to hope for some relief from 
the thousand and one combines springing up like mushrooms all 
around us, and ask, "Won't they help the masses to fare better?" 
No; why should they? Combines care only for their own stock- 
Tiolders. Get this fact, I pray you. Get hold of the combine idea. 
It can help, and is only intended to help those in them, and if we do 
not manage to get in, they can and will exploit us for their enter- 
tainment. 




Comrades of the Grand Army of the Republic, 

I write you on a subject that lies very near my heart, believing 
that you, with me, feel a peculiar interest in the continued well-being 
of the country that we loved enough to fight for. A few mornings 
ago I awoke and remembered that I had been singing in my dreams, 
"Yes, we'll rally 'round the flag, boys, we'll rally once again, shout- 
ing the battle cry of Freedom," as we used to sing it down in Dixie. 
The close proximity to the old days almost startled me, and I felt 
as though I must turn out and answer to the roll call. And then I 
lay and thought out what freedom really means to the people now! 
It meant a good deal then, — there was an emergency upon us; our 
ship of State was afire, and the able seamen, deck hands and passen- 
gers all, had a lively interest; but would it not look a bit foolish for 
all on board to begin fighting a make-believe fire at Liverpool, and 
fight all the way to New York, just to keep in practice, lest the ship 
should get afire? Or isn't it just a little cowardly for a man to be 
"on the brag" when there is no danger near? Didn't we rather ex- 
pect such a fellow to fall to the rear when there was some live 
Johnnies in front? Or now in civil life to hear a big burly man tell 
what a fighter he is, to a lot of women and children? We pity a man 
who puts on war paint and (like a Chinaman fighting the devil with a 
butcher knife) thinks there's a battle on; and we kindly send him to 
the asylum. To be sure a sufficient political demonstration makes 
the blood run warmer in our veins and instills into the life-blood of 
the younger men and women the elements necessary to patriotism, 
if ever a like emergency should arise, as we one by one lie down 
and sleep while another walks the beat, confident then that our coun- 
try is safe in the hands of these younger people, — ^but, as a people, 
have we no other duty? If not, our duty is little, if any, more than 
a sinecure now that our political liberty is assured, our very national 
bulk is a guarantee; so what need to muster. Do not anticipate that 
I am going to advocate a reduction of the standing army. I would 
have half a million of trained soldiers ready at a minute's warning, 
but completely self-supporting, living at home with their wives and 
children, and in homes of their very own — citizen soldiers in time of 
peace, and with a real home and family of their own, as well as a 
country to fight for, in time of real war, if any nation on earth 
would be foolhardy enough to attack us in the face of these facts. 
Not but that we should keep our arms ready and our powder dry, and 
our face to seaward, but this, so nnportant in its place, is not all. We 
glow with enthusiasm tliat a Miss Stone in Bulgaria was such an 
important personage because she was an American citizen abroad, 
but how about American citizens at home? It has been said that 
more girls (American citizens) died in one month in the sweat shops 
of New York than there were boys (American citizens) killed in the 
Spanish-American war. Is not the life of an American citizen on this 
side of the water as precious as that of an American citizen on the 
other side of the water? Is it like us to lie supinely on our backs in 
the rifle pits and let a foe, foreign or domestic, military or civil, ride 
over us or decimate our loved ones, and spoil our homes, and we 
squeak and whine and say we couldn't help ourselves? Yet that is 
practically what we are doing on the battlefield of industry. We are 



GRAND ARMY. 17 

really doing that very thing. 

If it was said in that olden day, "To be a Roman is greater than 
to be a king," so now let it be said, and true to the letter: "To be 
an American citizen is greater at home than if abroad;" greater in 
the field of industry, mark you, than on the battlefield; greater 
because he is a man or she a woman than to be a wooden man, an. 
iron man, a wool man, a cotton man, a silver or a gold man; these 
are infinitesimally small when weighed in the balance against a man 
with a soul and rights as an American citizen; and so manhood must 
have the right of way. We of the Grand Army do not get 
much credit for religious or moral thinking. Our only love 
is thought to be "the love of country." Yet as we think 
back over the way we know, whether we get credit for it or not, 
that it was the love of home that prompted us to step to the front. 
"Home, sweet home." was the favorite song of both 
armies. Some of us may not have had a home, but each of us did 
have lit up within us an ideal. It was the longing for, the pouring 
out of the soul of the composer as he wrote out the words of "Home, 
sweet home" that lends to it its charm, and no class of men ever sang 
it with deeper pathos than the American soldier. I would inspire 
to action our intense desire, so that we here and now declare that our 
sons who now take up the watch, shall have a home of his very own. 
Not rented, or borrowed, or taxed, but to keep for himself and his 
family after him. Is it not a sad comment on a country that is so 
nearly perfect in our eyes, that about half of our young men between 
the ages of i6 and 35, have no home. What is the underlying cause? 
Our society has never had any combined plan. Men have had to 
work here and there and everywhere; no permanency in any job. 
What I want to say to you, comrades, but so loud that all may hear 
it. that the way of the combine is the only way to a tangible or a 
material home; and I remind you that the young man that leaves 
home too often, leaves virtue, morals and religion all behind. 
Property has no sacred rights now, nor can it have any sacred rights 
in the presence of your sofi or mine: not that I esteem property any 
the less, but the man the more; property is a good and necessary 
servant, but a cruel, unfeeling and relentless soulless master. Can 
we be Americans and suffer longer its horrible mastery and abuse? — 
Americans, and hesitate to set its proper metes and bounds, so that 
its future accumulations will shine beneficently down on every son 
and daughter under the waving folds of old glory? Why, bless you, 
we don't need, to deprive any of the present owners of their rations, — 
not a bit of it, all that is necessary is simply a little forethought of 
the commissary department, a little previous planning of the heads 
of the messes, that's all. No foraging, no appropriating, no fighting, 
just give freemen an equal chance industrialy as he has politically, 
and they will show themselves to be men; and then it will dawn upon 
us the extent of and what equality really means in that immortal 
document, the Declaration of Independence, handed down to us from 
our fathers, and which we herewith transmit to our children and 
transcending with added meaning in its progress from father to son. 
Industrial equality is the next step in our national progress, and don't 
you forget it, and we can take it now and be just to the poor and 
tliat, without being unjust to the rich. Diplomacy will serve us in 
peace as surely and as well as tactics did in war. Now if our conduct 
in peace and war is to 'be measured by its good eiTects who shall say 
which, posterity we will be the most grateful, too, our forefathers for 
giving us a country, or to us now living, for giving 
every man, woman and child a hom'e of their very own, 
and to keep as free as a bird its nest, in this very country of our 



18 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

fathers. No class of men respects the Southern soldier more than 
the Grand Army (and well we may), and when we said, with Grant, 
"Let us have peace," we meant every word of it; and so we would 
forever set aside any and every cause for war. Now comrades, what 
mean these combinations of capital on the one hand and unions on 
the other? Just play? Just a little diversion? All for fun? A little 
tilting to see if society will not behave itself better? — and if it does 
not, what then? echo answers, "What then?" We had a country to 
save, and we saved it; may we not stand now as arbitors of that 
nation that we saved? and when even a greater emergency is on, — 
greater, in that it is greater to prevent a battle than it is to fight; 
greater, in that it is greater to make homes than to destroy them; 
greater, in that it is greater to free fifty million wage slaves from 
worse bondage (worse in its effects) than four millions from African 
slavery. One may say wage slavery is popular, a kind of 
matter of course; so was African slavery popular and some called it 
a divine institution then. You remember it, but there came a time 
when this country could not longer exist half slave and half free, — 
so now the time has come when this country cannot live as employed 
and employer; put that in your pipe and smoke it. Wages and 
personified capital must go, and harmonious co-operative effort and 
dividends must take their places. This cause of the present unrest 
must be removed, root and branch, that the baneful efifects may 
cease: anything less is as mere child's play, and will act but to 
aggravate. The people are ready for the combine, needing only the 
grit of the Grand Army veteran to step out, sign the muster roll, 
and say, "Come on,. boys," with a significance that means victory. 
Tender-handed, touch the nettle and it but stings you for your care, 
grasp it like a man of metal, and wealth will say, "Excuse me, that's 
all right; but why didn't you speak out soo er?"and metaphorically 
say, "I have been waiting these years for a definite proposal, and 
leading you on lady-like, by object lessons, giving you a combine 
here, and a trust there, thinking it strange that by my most winning 
ways I could not induce you to make a definite proposal. I have 
always known that we ought to act as one; our interests are 
identical, and we should work for each other, and not against each 
other. Shall we go and get the incorporation paper now?" This is 
not mere figure of speech, but a plain, straight-forward business 
proposition, and to the self-interest of all the people and is what is 
needed and is of sufficient magnitude to appeal to all the people; 
this, and this only, can supplant selfishness in business; "we" and 
"our," must take the place of "my" and "me" in productions and 
distribution of productions. Producers own everything produced, 
and the combine is a practical, feasible and purely business way for 
the producer to get the best results from his own productions. That 
is what a combine is, and if you see anything wrong about it as a 
fact, you have the floor. 

A central figure is a fixed law of the universe. The sun is the 
center of the solar system. Man is the center, the head of the ani- 
mal creation. The President is the head of government. The 
corporation is the head of industry. All of these are benign in 
their influence and love, life, light, shine out from each. A blending 
of industry is a trust, and a trust is a corporation at work. Work 
and its results comprehend, includes both labor and capital as one. 
So these centers, God, sun, man, president, corporation, all harmon- 
ize in teaching us that there is absolutely nothing short of uniting 
all industry under one management. Can it not be rational, fair or 
final for corporations and federations to pool their issues and unite 
in one only corporation? The President's message seems to say go 



GRAND ARMY. 19 

on blindly building up corporations, fortify mountain high on the one 
side, and you have my blessings, and to federations, fortify moun- 
tain high on the other side, and you have my blessing. And I ask 
then vi^hat? But suppose he means to say to each when you get big 
enough. Boys, you can then fight to kill. 

Industry includes both the production and the labor that pro- 
duces it. 

Industry, like politics, must be under our management. Labor 
and capital must be under one management. Self-government has 
already given a charter to mdustry, the right to incorporate. 

America has had no precedent to guide her in her political 
youth. She needs no precedent to guide her in her industrial pro- 
ceedings. To be sure the little billion dollar combines are in the 
interest of a corporal's guard of stockholders, but our combine is- 
the same as these except in the personnel of its stockholders. 
Their's excludes us, our combine includes us and them, takes us al£ 
in. If you have not thought of it, I do not wonder that you stag- 
ger at the magnitude of it, or at its seeming audacity or real bold- 
ness of procedure; but calmly now, if five people can combine, and 
they have; cannot five thousand? If so, cannot all the people com- 
bine? No definite proposition has ever been offered to us of suffici- 
ent magnitude, of strength to grasp and hold, or of such magnanimity 
or conciliation as to entitle it to the respect of both laboring men 
and capitalists. The industrial combine is no dividing up of capital 
you see on the one hand, or taking something in charity which 
already belongs to the producers by good right and which it is so- 
humiliating to their manhood to take m charity on the other, 
what men want is simply an even chance to produce and each keep' 
their just proportion of what is produced. Permit me to impress 
it on your mind that this is just what the combines are doing every 
day for their stockholders and mind! you they are backed by our 
Government, getting their incorporation papers from our Govern- 
ment, so we the people's combine will also be backed by our govern- 
ment and get our incorporation papers from our government. You 
may wonder why it has not been done before: I remind you that 
everything had a beginning, that nearly all the forces and fashions 
now in vogue are new in their uses; coal, coal oil, electricity, steam 
power, telegraphy, telephones — almost as new as your lady's summer 
hat; so why stand agape at a people's combine? 

Let us take just one example, oil. It may or it may not have- 
dawned upon Mr. Rockefeller thirty years ago the mag itude of his- 
combine or the use that we the people now propose to make of his- 
object lesson on oil, to substitute combination for competition as he- 
did. No doubt but that he explained to the refineries, etc., that 
definite planning is better than competitive chaos, that it meant 
absolute control of the oil business, true, and that there is no chance 
for those who remain outside, true, but we give everybody a chance 
to get in, true, etc. Why did Standard Oil succeed? Because com- 
bination In business succeeds everywhere. Mr. Rockefeller simply 
combined Standard Oil with railroad and becami^ the first billionaire 
in America, and combination will make "Columbia the gem of the 
ocean" (as we used to sing). And as I said before, a little well directed 
grit led off by the grand army, like Grant's, "I'm going to fight it 
out on this line if it takes all summer," will result, as his did, 
'n the people's victory, long before the summer is over. 
We must needs be definite. This nation was born 
at two o'clock on the 4th day of July, 1876. A definite 
ite thing at a definite time in a definite way. I am aware it 
took a long time to suitably adjust the minutia, largely because our 



20 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

fathers had to wage a war. Our delay, if any, will mostly be from 
our incredulity but this will be largely overcome the hour we declare 
our intentions; our people will then take heart again. To be sure, 
it will take a little time to install all our people in permanent homei» 
of their own. I have pointed out elsewhere that homesteads are not 
homes in any true sense, and also that the impulse to be fair must 
have a new center from which to radiate and that this new center 
is self-interest which must needs supplant selfishness as a business 
axiom. The fight for bread must cease. To work for bread was 
Godl's plan, and when we work for it, we ought to have it without 
a fight. Besides, its no kindness to continue a nefarious system that 
loads some up (as we have been doing) with an overload of forage, 
to be captured both soul and body by the enemy; better stop the fight 
between labor and capital, signal across the field for an armistice 
at once, and as soon as possible let the good news ring out that the 
war for bread is over. Why bless you, society is supporting every 
man, woman and child in America now, and at a tremendous dis- 
advantage to boot; can it not do it many times easier, when all are 
helping and nobody hindering? All co-operating together as in a com- 
bine, one in interest, as we really are. The young men and women 
want to do the work of America; they expect to do the work of 
America; why not give them not only a chance but the very best 
chance. Our people are a thousand times better at heart than their 
competitive business methods make them, but rather we all would be 
fair, if the other fellows would. It's "tit for tat," a play for children, 
but contemptible for men of affairs; and besides, it's the poorest kind 
of business policy. Self-interest tells us to help each other for help 
in return. We'll get it only when it's the self-interest of every one 
to help the others instead of hindering. In devoting this letter to 
you, my comrades, let me remind you again that political equality 
touches us only here and there, now and then as in war or threaten- 
ings; but the industrial equality of the combine is a legitimate pro- 
duction of our political equality, and will touch us like a mother, con- 
tmually soothing, refining and improving us by a steady, uniform and 
loving embrace, an atmosphere to live in, bringing the government 
of '76 so near to us that we can love it as a material substance, as well 
as a political sentiment, a tangible material home; not a figure of 
speech, so that we can, any and all of us from the least to the greatest 
comprehend that if government goes, home goes; if government 
stays, houit. istays. T! is is real, and no figure of speech and as a 
home nest is "everything" to the masses, we of sage and sober 
thought can do no greater service to the boys and girls than to leave 
/hem in t^e possession ol the combine. Municipal ownership, govern- 
ment ownership, etc., have not proved a success in many instances; 
I am told, not because they did not have a vision of the right idea, 
but because it was visionary for them to enter the field of competi- 
tion and fight for standing room against selfishness, for government 
to enter the field as a competitor is irrational and idle. No man, 
city or government can get down and wrestle with another in the 
competitive mud and not get muddy; or what better, labor makes 
a man of straw, calls him capital, and then fights him, others worship 
him and so all such shallow movements must sooner or later come to 
grief, and business uncertainty will continue until the government 
gives the absolute monopoly of all productive property over to the 
people — not a few or part of the people, but to all the people as indi- 
vidual stockholders in a combine and hold that combine responsible 
as an individual, what is everybody s business is nobody's 
business; a combine is a business success and no mistake, 
and with a congealed, congested, crystalized combine com.- 



GRAND ARMY. 21 

petent to do, able to do, willing to do, with every 
stockholder, from the one who has an idea above an oytser, 
to the best financier of the nation, all acting out their own individual 
self-interest, all helping and none to hinder, we will cool down the 
now raging fever of the people, public confidence, public interest 
-and health will be restored and perpetuated, and not only political 
health, but physical health, as we have shown in other letters, will 
catch the glow. I am strenuous for the combine because it lets in 
the sunshine on every phase of individual life physical, social and 
spiritual. It's not only a lift up, but a look up. 

You may, with me, like to take delicious viands from ancient and 
modern history; let me set before you a most delicious and suggest- 
ive dish, so that we may be suitably impressed with the design of 
the great designer of the home, in gathering the solitary into families, 
families into society, and society into nations. From the history of 
nations we gather His design to be in the Hebrew civilizatirn, an 
object lesson teaching morals, in the Greek civilization, an object 
lesson teaching morals and nobility, in the Roman civilization, com- 
bining morals and nobility with law and order, in the Saxon civiliza- 
tion, appropriating all the good that had preceded it, of morals, nobil- 
ity, law and order, and adding good breedmg , their red blood run- 
ning down and filling the arteries and veins of men and women, 
establishing the English nation, with its culture and dip'Omacy. The 
Mayflower landed the best English stock on Plymouth Rock, and 
America, with the morals of the Hebrew, the nobility of the Greek, 
"the law and order of the Romans, the good breeding of the Saxons, 
<<nd the culture and diplomacy of the English, set up the ensign of 
self-government, which in its majesty and splendor has stirred all 
the civili/:^tiot)<; to their depths. All along down through our history, 
our very grandeur and glitter has attracted the best of all nations 
"to our shores but this may not excuse us for overlooking and neglec- 
ting our own home nest letting some members of our very own 
family impose on the others; and now in looking for a remedy 
instead of chastisement or punishment, like that of the sixties, we 
think in time, and to better purpose, and so in keeping with our 
character, reputation and progress, we find just at hand the combine, 
comino: well recommended and which fulfills all requirements and 
puts that surpulus energy exerted by some to become rich them- 
selves and selfishly so, and at any cost, into a different channel by 
installing self-interest, as the running mate, the rational companion, 
and very sequence of self-government, and so putting the whole 
national family on its own good behavior to trust and be trusted, to 
combine and be combined. That no other nation has ever tried self-in- 
terest ais an industrial business center, ought not to stagger us: why 
should it, for are we not the sons of fathers who first tried p-litical 
self-government? — they made it go, and we are proud of them; shall 
our children have as just a right to be proud of us? — in forever 
settling this war between labor and capital, and in the real interest 
of all. Comrades, we must set the pace for the ages. 

We must make the necessary distinction between a man and capi- 
tal. We talk of capital as though it were a "living being" — a man 
is a man, be he rich or poor; the accident of inherited wealth must 
not obliterate the man — neither must the (poor) man be obliterated 
for the want of it. We must see that, as labor is simplv material- 
ized exertion, and effort is an indivisable part of us, therefore labor 
is part of the man; but capital is only something that the man has 
made, for present and future use, hence no part of the man and 
cannot be personified or loved or hated, talked to or caressed, or 
listened to as a person. Capital is in one view a machine — man made 



22 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

Vt and it belongs to its maker. We call a man a heathen if he talks 
to an inanimate object, either in love or epithets, we poor prophets 
of Baal have cried capital, hear us capital, hear us, about long enough. 
Why should we talk to capital. Man is not a machine, but a force to 
move a machine. God made man, but we make a sorry mess of it 
when we make a man, though we use gold; when it is made it is just 
as proper to call it a calf as a man. A man made in the image of 
God, is God's vice-agent, is everything; some are wise, but some are 
otherwise, and really need the help of those who are wise. The 
wisest are getting together in the combines and leaving us out, think 
of it, yet these are men, and friends at that, when we show them the 
respect of addressing them as men, instead of capitalists. When we 
go to a neighbor's we talk to the man, and not to his house; we call 
him "Mr." and he says "Come in." Let us all get in right relations 
with our neighbors, that we, as well as they, can say "Come in;" 
everybody come in so that the coming age may be an age of man- 
hood, (not inanimate capital) in which self-interest teaches us to 
lift up other men, so they will be disposed to lift us up, instead of the 
selfishness that now teaches us to strike down other men in indus- 
trial affairs, resulting in our being struck down by a man or men 
united for the avowed purpose of striking us down. Let us combine 
and have industrial peace and plenty. 

I will close with, to me, the happiest reminiscence of that great 
war, a little incident that occurred just at its close. Our brigade lay 
at Tullahoma, Tenn. Gen. Sherman had captured many thousands of 
prisoners, and our Government was sending them home, home did I 
say? Yes, though it was but its charred remains (God forbid that we 
shall let the dispute between labor and capital char any more homes). 
I could see the trains coming three miles away, wells were few and 
deep about the depot, and water scarce, I made it my business to 
borrow from our boys all the canteens that I could carry full of 
water, and by the time the train was in, I was there and the boys 
in gray would crowd around me and empty my canteen and tip their 
hats (like plumed knights that they were) in thanks. A little thing 
you say, yes, but did I loose anything? No, neither can you that 
read these lines, lose anything by giving, just like our government 
now gives not only a homestead, but a real home, a house to every 
homeless man, woman and child in America, not only because One 
has said, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, 
ye have done it unto me." But I will prove to you if need be, that 
such an act is truly to your own self-interest. You may not believe 
in future lewards and punishments, but suppose these prove true, 
would it not be well to just fortify a little while you are here and 
can and like Abou Ben Adhem, ask by this act to be recorded as one 
who lov<^s his fellow-men. 



What Effect Will the Industrial Combine 
Have Upon florality? 

I answer this question to assure any that may hesitate in giving 
it their indorsement. That it will not compromise or in any way 
injure either their moral character or Christian reputation but be 
rather helpful to both. The combine is strictly business but it can- 
not be so exclusive and mdependent of olitics, morals, religion, etc., 
but that it will have some relation to or bearing on them. I like 
the combine idea because it does not require us to do any question- 
■able thing. 

Franklin once asked the significant question, "What can law do 
without morals? Then the immorality of lying surely ought not to 
take the place of a necessity in our every day business procedure. 
But it is claimed that lying is a necessity in competitive business, in 
fact we do not expect competition to tell the truth. We teach our 
children morals and law, and then do we not cancel both, by teaching 
competition in business? which if tried before a judge of the Frank- 
lin type would be found to be criminal also, so that a person who is 
guilty of practicing competition in business ought not to be over 
sensative concerning the morality of combination. If telling a busi- 
ness he, and acting a business lie is the teaching of busi- 
ness competition as it is, then it necessarily follow; that telling a 
"business truth and acting a business truth is the teaching of business 
combination. For combination in business is the antithesis, the very 
-opposite of competition in business; while it is bad enough to cover 
up defects and deceive by word and action, in all our competitive 
business transactions, is it not also a bit humiliating? Yes, a burn- 
ing shame for us to feel and know that we are constantly teaching 
our children to do the same, and our stupidity becomes amazement 
when we get the right focus on our conduct, on ourselves, and then 
to realize that business truth would serve us ten times better in bus- 
iness profits than business lying, surely "a man is a fool that 
deceives himself." 

Combination and its possibilities through co-operation, as inti- 
mated by the examples around us are marvelous and beyond our 
present conception. So, surely, what is the use of lying when the 
"business truth is just at hand, and ready to be told and acted out in 
all our business transactions? The effect that the people's industrial 
combine will have on miorality is seen then in the comparative 
efifect of lying and telling the truth in the abstract; producing x 
finer sense of integrity, together with the financial profit of combina- 
tion over competition. Listen, again, industrial business is unlike 
politics, it is unlike morals, it is unlike religion, is incompatible with 
one and all of these, as necessary and good as they are in their place 
it will not mix, it stands out as distinct and alone as any of these and 
if it is impracticable to mix church and State, as our fathers taught, 
60 it is to mix religion and industry, politics and industry. 
No matter to what party, church or moral code or 
society, I belong, your industrial interest is my industrial interest 
and vice versa; farther if for any reason we are personal enemiet 
our industrial interest must from the very nature of things be identi- 



24 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

cal. If you are still in doubt I refer you to the combines flourish- 
ing all around you and they are actuated by this very fact of indus- 
trial self-interest among their stockholders. Competition in indus- 
try is clandestine, is a misconception. It's not only deceptive and 
in itself, but leads to a fight and immoral practices, as we have seen. 
Combination is moral and leads towards morality, co-operation in 
industry leads tjs intuitively towards comradeship and fellowship 
and as ye would that men (not angels but men) should do unto you 
be ye even so unto them. I am only setting old things in a new light, 
in a business light, where they have not been .set before. 

It is bad enough to lead people astray in moral and religious 
matters but what are we to think of a people who deliberately agree 
among themselves to lead others into the immoral practice of lying, 
into a material tangible entity of business deception, as definite and 
specific an object as a wooden god, and metaphorically saying to men 
fight, fight, fight, the brutes fight and so must you. He that loveth 
not his brother whom he hath seen how can he love God whom he 
hath not seen? First John, 4-20, plainly intimating that such as do 
not consult his brothers interest cannot please God, but suppose 
you do not choose to believe there is a God, or that you are under 
any obligation to him, you are still under obligation to your brother, 
and we all are, and all are under mark you the most obligations to 
those who need us most. In view of this fact what excuse can we have 
for fighting, that is competing against a brother, especially a weak 
brother, and what objection can there be to co-operating with him 
that he also may likewise co-operate with you and' I in productive 
industry. I ask you again to study the combine "idea," I freely admit 
that the little combines representing a small part of the people are 
unjust and tyrannical to those outside and with whom in the very 
nature of things they must now fight and such must and will always 
continue to fight, until industry comes under one management and to 
be operated in the industrial self-interest of all the people both as 
to their labor and their capital. The people's industrial combine or 
corporation. I am asked if all the people are to act in a harmoni- 
ous concert in industrial procedures, i. e., to combine. Why incor- 
porate at all? Why not let the general government act for them with- 
out it? I answer: 

1st. To respect what has already been well done. Incorporation 
is its plan, accept it why not? 

2nd. To act legally and recognize existing law and order in 
business matters. 

3. Incorporation is immediate in its relief, no waiting in the 
cold, or starving while evolution or revolution is squandering 
precious time. 

4th. It appeals to our reason, and we are also now acquainted 
with this method of procedure, so it's not a new and untried experi- 
ment. The idea is correct and we cannot expect Congress to legis- 
late against it and she will not. 

5th. Its perfectly adapted for the purposes intended. 

6th. It dififerentiates clearly between political equality and indus- 
trial equality, a difference necessary to be made and perpetually main- 
tained. Let politics attend to what belongs to law and industry to 
what belongs to industry. 

7th. To make clear and definite the distinction between a man 
and his money, or to make definite the difiference between t^^e pro- 
tection of a citizen of the United States in his person, and in his prop- 
erty rights. 

8th. To enaljle the individuals to own property as an individual, 
and thus enable him to maintain his personal individuality, which: 



EFFECT ON MORALITY. 25 

would be most difficult, for him to do if at all, if owning enmass or 
collectively as a city, State or nation. 

9th. To make plain the difference between the selfish compet- 
itive exclusiyeness of the brute, and the self-interest of the human 
between instinct and reason. ' 

loth. Government being impersonal and inanimate is incompe- 
tent to own in fee simple. It can only control and that usually for 
a limited time, as a receiver in civil cases, or a military necessity 
Morality is aided by the industrial combine in that it encourages every 
man to do his best, bringing out and developing his individuality 
thus enabling each to win industrial distinction unhindered by poverty 
or weighted down by wealth. 

People are now so absorbed in making money, in making a liv- 
mg, that they have no time to make a life, a moral character, a fine 
distinction between truth and falsehood, little heeding, in fact, that 
we have a self (selfish) and also a better self (self-interest).' The 
fretful strain, for wealth, the intensity of business application, the 
disgraceful fight, all summed up in one word, competition in indus- 
try. For the sake of morality let us relieve our children, our family, 
our society by harmonious co-operation, by a combination of all our 
industrial interests, letting each one occupy with glad enjoymient 
the niche for which he or she is best fitted. Pigeon-hole as com- 
bines do into appartments every branch of business, making definite 
and consequently lighter the burdens of each, and clearer the respec- 
tive duties, bringing after, the real restfulness of duty finished, a feel- 
ing of security, in possessing impossible now, where every one is 
intenton taking any unfair advantage of every one else. Thought- 
fully, is it not a libel on Christianity for us good people? To retali- 
ate and implicitly teach to young and old to follow the example of 
that man who makes big money for himself, no matter how? Vice 
is bad enough at par, without a Christian nation continuing to pay 
so great a premium for it by eulogizing and lionizing the trickster, 
the schemer, the fighter, directing the thought away from morality! 
Haven't we carried far enough this mammon worship that makes a 
few wealthy and worshiped and the masses comparatively poorer 
and the more despised? Sin is usually but the excessive use of the 
good. It is Christian to make money, but surely not to the exstreme 
of expiating a fellow-man, and I always want it clearly and definitely 
understood that we are to encourage every improved method of 
making a living even. The millionaire, himself, as a machine, is a 
valuable invention if working for all the people, this improved 
machine with which money is easily made, and he is America's best 
production. Let the people utilize him as they do any other inven- 
tion; if his corporation i? good for a few, let the many adopt it. 
Encourage our able financiers. They now work for a few stock- 
holders; they will as certainly willing and truly work for the larger 
nurnber. If you don't yet believe try it and you will see. Self-inter- 
est is far more conductive to high endeavor than narrow selfishness. 
Give every man, high or low, rich or poor, an even chance to develop 
the best that is in him. We can expect great interests only from 
those who have a stake in the prosperity of the country, so each one 
must have such a stake. 

You say that combines are partial to their own stockholders. 
Yes, of course, they are and that is their most attractive feature. If 
so the combine will be partial to us if we are in it if we are stock- 
Tiolders. Each will have a care. A man of right is partial to his own 
family, and always will be, and the best expression of this partial- 
ity is shown by his willingness to combine and co-operate with other 
men, to get the greatest posible industrial good for his own family. 



26 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

The man with a soul, the people all, so will finally assist the combine. 
All this is in harmony with law, and gospel (ist Timothy, 5-8). 
Clearly this partiality is not to be between members of the family; 
neither between members of the larger family. 

It is the love of money that is the root of all evil. Let us sub- 
stitute character for or instead of money, love character, we can dO' 
it, and put money where it will help us properly, and all of us to build- 
up moral character by helping each to help themselves. 



f 



In My Letter to the Rich or Capitalistic Class 

. I shall studiously avoid offensive epithets myself, and emphat- 
ically msist that the day of industrial strife is ended and that the day 
of concihation has dawned >and with its "as ye would" becoming 
the opemng light of Christian civilization and social progress, each 
calling for the best thought, and the best impulse of which we are 
capable. 

I will honestly try to proceed in the spirit of fairness to discuss 
the principle that self-mterest, which, being fundamentally right, just 
and good, is the only secular shrine at which we can all worship, rich 
and poor alike. Our business training has taught us that it was to 
our business interest to crowd others down; and against our business 
interest to lift others up, but if we did lift up at all it was entirely 
from some religious sentiment and that it would surely work tt) our 
financial peril, thus unwittingly setting Christianity at war with 
finance. It is for the purpose of reversing this sentiment, and that 
without any violence or injury to the most sensitive feelings or deli- 
cate taste of any who may read these lines, that this letter is written 
lo be logical. I must needs have begun with economics and pro- 
fight for; and so belonging to the animal rather than human nature 
ceeded to study economy; but enough has been said along these lines 
to make them commonplace already, so if you please we will waive 
a repetition and come down to existing conditions as we find them 
and try reasoning apriori as well as posteriori concerning the envir- 
onments that now surround us. We find that we are surrounded by 
a state of business called competition, from compete, to strive, or 
This system of business has been bred in us, and so it is not to be 
wondered at if we accept it as not only the best way but seemingly 
the only way. That there is really another way, a better way, I ven- 
ture now to assert. A symbol of our present state of mind existed 
not many years ago all over the world, namely, that political power ' 
should originate in a king. America proposed and contended that 
this power ought , and must, originate at the very opposite extreme 
of society, that is, with the people. It was urged that the people 
were incompetent to govern themselves, but suffice is to say, the new 
method was adopted and America has been, ostensibly at least, a 
government by the people. This, please remember, was the exact 
reverse of the old system. I mention this as a precedent, realizing 
that these are the days in which precedents or object lessons are 
required. Now, we have the best form of government and the best 
one of Its form under the sun. We would not change its form if we 
could, and could not if we would, but mark you it is a political gov- 
ernment and not an industrial government. We are only proposing 
to reverse our business methods or to be accurate and say adopt a 
method of business suited to and under this government, as our 
fathers did the form, and to so harmonize with this form that the 
benign rays of our form of government may direct us in our indus- 
tries. Competition has been, true to the letter, not only monarch- 
lal but pugilistic, and like the hand of Ishmael, "which was against 
every man," but combination (as now introduced) has a beconing 
hand, a helping hand. 

Competition is negative, scattering, repellant, planless, destruc- 



28 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

tive, child-like, chaotic. Combination is positive, conciliatory, accum- 
ulative, methodical, ideal, manlike. Governments are all instituted 
for one purpose— the good of the governed. The diflFerence in the 
form is significant to be sure, but the form, in the presence of the 
object for which governments are formed, is comparatively insig- 
nificant. This fairly represents the magnitude of our present under- 
taking to show, that a government must do for the people politically 
all that they cannot do for themselves singly and alone. To be sure, 
if we had a king, he must govern for the good of the people, and if 
the people govern, they surely must govern for the good of the peo- 
ple also, and this must needs mean all the people — not simply a part 
or party of the people, which might mean practically one-half or a 
bare majority. This bare majority may have been gained by some 
outside or undue influence, as the use of money or intimidation. 
Hence, an existing administration of our political government may 
not represent a majority of the people at all, but rather a rich or 
influential or otherwise powerful but small minority. So if we would 
be really loyal to this, our government of the people, we must all 
see to it that the people are not frustrated in their designs or influ- 
enced to vote against their own real political interests, or become 
mixed up with industrial influences. This is not irrevelant, for it is 
generally believed that financial consideration, and not men. carry 
many elections. If so, what has become of the republic our fathers 
founded? and what should be the name of our present government? 
I am only asking the question to hear what you have to say in 
answer. I am writing to the rich who are intelligently competent to 
answer it. I want them to answer it as loyal citizens of this republic 
and also to see that the people have just cause for grievance, and to 
know that we know that they know what the .cause ol 
grievance is. And I believe in their frankness and miag- 
nanimity and spirit of fairness, which when aroused, will 
help to iset this purely industrial matter right and at once. 
But lest there be some that want to be fair with us and yet do 
not understand us as yet, we will more or less minutely specify the 
change we want to make and its eflfects upon their person, property, 
etc., I am writing to those also, who understand the design and sig- 
nification of trusts or combines and their advantages to the stock- 
holders, yet who may not see that a combine of all industries is 
applicable, practical or possible. They would admit, perhaps, that if 
it were, it would be desirable, as the rich are already convinced 
that in combination lies the secret of their business success, and they 
are also convinced that old planless competition is not only a failure, 
but very far-reaching and disastrous both in its failures and suc- 
cesses, contradictory as this may seem; but as we think it out to its 
final analysis, we will find that its successes are its worst failures, 
for as straitened and restless as are the poor, you that read these lines 
know that the rich have missed their aim and are still more nervous 
and restless; and both alike are entitled to the sympathy, yea. even 
the pity of the other. Yet our business methods of competition 
have taught the poor to say. "Oh. if I were only rich. I could be 
powerful!" etc. So I ask all. rich and poor alike, "What is the real" 
difference at heart between the rich and those who so badly want to 
be rich? Its a plain case of mistaken identity. 

But what effect will the combine have upon property? I ask the 
question. To say that in no sense is the present eyery-day combine 
or trust to be considered synonymous to a community of property. I 
concur in the statement often made that to divide property equally 
to-day and leave wide open the privilege of one to sell and another 
to buy, that by to-morrow some would be paupers and others mil- 



CAPITALISTS. 29 

honaires within a week. A division of property will not reach the 
object in view, neither do we find that government control of prop- 
erty will solve the problem— though that would prevent the one from 
selling and another from buying. So far, so good, with some modi- 
fications, however, to be sure. The government as we have shown 
elsewhere, really controls in a sense all property now— that eminent 
dornain is a recognized right of all governments— but it does so as 
a right of political government or as a matter of public political 
policy, not mind you, as a business enterprise, like, for example a® 
do the trusts or combines, do you see? These are industrial not polit- 
ical. So it is not needful that government should in the least degree 
change its present attitude, though it may be necessary for it to take 
charge as an arbiter or receiver in the formation of the Industrial 
Combine in relatively the same way that it does now in the formation 
of any corporation. 

In a homestead the title issues direct from the government, and, 
mark you, a homestead cannot be sold, and this very fact makes it 
absolutely the property of the homesteader (stop here and think; 
this point may set you right); and so it should continue to be. 
Hence, the government may first come into possession of all prop- 
erty; but not for the purposes of business, but only that it can thus 
be enabled to give a perfect title to individual homesteaders and 
also authority to the one corporation or combine, which, from the 
very nature of things, can never pass to second parties, hence not 
salable, because the government is next above the combine, as it is 
next above a homestead (and as the government must not do busi- 
ness as a business, or operate productive property), hence all prop- 
erty, whether residence or productive, will be held by unquestionable 
title, and like a homestead it cannot be sold. At the present time all 
title's to property are questionable, as you know, except patents direct 
from the government. ^So I argue our property will be better be- 
cause its title is better. Again, it is now an open and a vexed ques- 
tion, whether it really pays to own residence property at all, because 
of the taxes; as taxes are a lien on property hence there is con- 
stantly a ghostly unrest and so homes, being unproductive, cannot 
pay, hence must not have a lien of any kind on them. So residence 
property will be better property because it is not taxed. (Home- 
steads are not taxed). Productive property will all be more pro- 
ductive than now, for the like reason that productive property must 
all be put into an industrial combine or corporation which will make 
it, by co-operation, still more productive; hence productive prop- 
erty will be better property than now, because it will be more pro- 
ductive. Again, men do not only put productive property into a 
combine to make it more productive, but also to unload the care of 
it onto others, who are supposed to be as competent and yet better 
able to manage it than they are themselves. In other words, you 
are advanced to a point where you can see that it is not necessary to 
the full enjoyment of productive property, that it should be in separ- 
ate parcels before you can realize its full possession or that you as 
owner should exercise a direct personal control or supervisfon over 
it. I cannot refrain from asking what better steward could you 
possibly have than the Industrial Combine, authorized by the gov- 
ernment and thus having no possible competitor? Hence, produc- 
tive property will be better property by being more easily carried 
or cared for. Again, productive property in the combine will 
not only be more secure, but it will be as secure as the 
government itself (an ever-present inducement to loyalty), 
hence better property than it is now. Again, productive prop- 
erty in the combine guarantees suitable employment and sufficient 



30 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

recompense in dividends to guarantee the necessary running ex- 
penses of the home, which the lone individual or a class combine, 
cannot always do in sufficient amount. We have no such guaran- 
tee now, and in the very nature of things, with every fellow for 
himself, we cannot have; hence, property is not only better per se as 
property to hold, but the holding it furnishes also a sufficient means 
for subsistence. Again, in the combine each and every stockholder 
will be a party in interest in building up rather than in pulling down, 
so it will be better property than now. I am reminded that some 
may oppose the industrial combine because they really take a de- 
light in having victims to exploit, to cheat, something as a hunter 
delights in plenty of game. I call to mind that the aboirigines were 
great hunters and fighters, but pray, what is civilization if it ils not a 
getting away from Indian customs. To be sure, it may be pleasant 
to jest of the mighty nimrods, the noble red men, the bold highway- 
men, the brave fighter, but, dear me, civilization is not a-going in 
that direction and we need not make heroes of desparadoes, or finan- 
cial savages either. Listen, if existing combines say anything to us, 
they say too plain to be misunderstood, "Cease fighting." To be 
sure, they must yet defend themselves when attacked, but in the very 
nature of things they can gain nothing by opposition or industrial 
antagonism, or by keeping you and I out; rather, universal peace 
and good-will harmonizes with the very ego of their existence; 
hence we argue that our possessions will be better because they will 
be peaceable possession. 

In infancy, the child depends upon its family; in mature life, the 
parents depend upon the child. So can both depend on the strong 
arm of the industrial combine from the cradle to the grave. In any 
and every view of the case, all property is placed on the very best 
possible basis that is or can be thought out. Lest there be some that 
are timid about the sufficiency of the dividend to maintain them in 
the luxuries of life to which they have been accustomed, candidly 
let me say that, on business principles, our supplies will be meas- 
ured by our needs rather than childish wants. Yet, we believe 
they will prove satisfactory. If, during the transition stage, some lux- 
uries may not be within easy reach, the deprivation will be tempor- 
ary and may be more than equalized by others quite as agreeable, 
or if not, allow me to remind you that we are now frequently on ex- 
cursions or temporarily away from the base of supplies, and our 
hearts are not broken on account of it. Business may be so gradu- 
ally changed from the old to the new order as to be almost as im- 
perceptible and gradual as the rising day, so that the now-called 
wealthy will not be able to appreciate the change except to say, "It 
was dark, now it is light. I am as rich as ever, with the added sur- 
prise, that my once poor neighbors do not now need my charity." 
Other points may occur to each one of my readers why property 
will be better under the industrial combine, but I will assert that in 
no case will it be less valuable than now. Thoughtful capitalists 
can and do see a time in the near future when they will be unable to 
dispose of the surplus flowing into their possession as a result of 
combination — a timie when they can have no work left undone, em- 
ployment will necessarily cease and these unemployed must starve or 
be fed on charity. This condition will seem like a failure on the 
part of the rich to do as they are expected to do — that is, to hire the 
whole world for wages. A time is coming when they can't pay the 
wages of today, if wages at all, and their head and heart both ache 
a3 they try to think out a way, and right glad would they be for the 
rest, security and certainty of a home and of plenty as the People s 
'Industrial Combine will guarantee. 

But the central thought, the magic word, is "Home." It, as no 



CAPITALISTS. 31 

other word in our language, makes ou,r heaHts b'eat as one. If the 
combine did nothing more than to guarantee a home to all, it would 
be entitled to our lasting gratitude and respect. (I have shown in 
another letter that government homesteads do not do it now and can 
never do it.) Yet, as we sit and contemplate the home, as even the 
rich now know it, we shudder as we think that the rich of the last 
generation are the homeless poor of this generation, with but 
very few exceptions, and that if the same system continues, history 
will but repeat itself, and you that read these lines — if not, your chil- 
dren — will, ere long, be under foot. But excuse me for this melan- 
choly, but true to life reverie. 

This uncertainty is due to competition, and will continue as 
long as competition continues, for no matter how rich we are, a 
richer than we can take it from us; no matter how strong we are, a 
stronger than we can whirl us over the precipice. Is this industrial 
government for the good of the governed? Is it kind for the friends 
of the rich to stand idly by, knowing that the greater the fall the 
more certain the destruction and permit its votaries to climb higher 
and still higher? No poor are so to be pitied as those who have 
been rich. If indeed there is no better way than this competitive 
warfare, we are all alike to be pitied, but I hasten to say again that 
there is a better way. If such a condition of body or of such a state 
of mind would be so unwelcome to us concerning ourselves, or to 
us regarding a member of our own family, cannot we let our hearts 
warm just a little for those who are now homeless? We speak of 
the homeless wanderer but, the wanderer's life is happiness, fre- 
quently, when compared with those who cannot wander but must 
sit in solitude, so hopeless, helpless and forlorn, all because of rneth- 
ods of business that have made some of us vicious, like wild beasts, 
instead of humane, like men. Do you want it continued? You 
being rich, may seek for refuge and greater security in a combine, 
but please remember that you are only a little more secure, even 
there you are not safe. A rich&r combine than the one to which 
you belong can whirl your combine about like a child does a toy. 
Again you may see it but darkly through the misty twilight, that 
it is possible for say a dozen different combines to have in their con- 
trol all the property of the United States; yes, and then, if these 
dozen combines would all com.bine into one? So, in contemplating 
this future private combine, we are lost in amazement at its possi- 
bilities and power, and then with an Alexander at the top, weeping 
because there are no more worlds to conquer. If riches have been 
uncertain in the past under competition, subject to the avarice of 
man, who has a soul, though it may be hidden away, what must it 
be und,er such a combination with no man and no soul to hide away 
or to be found, though we do sweep the house and seek diligently 
for it? I am asked what is the difference between this final combine 
and the industrial combine. Much every way. (As a monarchy is 
the very opposite of a Republic so this combine is just the opposite 
of our combine). These combines have no souls. The industrial 
combine is the soul personified, people themselves. But another 
difference is seen in the contrast between rnonarchy and a irepublic, 
which we intentionally explained on a preceding page, that you 
may now apply it here. In one case the power originates in one 
man, the king; in the other case the power originates at the other 
extreme, that is, with the people; and who could know better what 
the people want than the people themselves? Happily our form of 
political government is that of a republic, the people rule; hence our 
education to that extent prepares us to comprehend and appropri- 
ate the simple extension of our privileges as American citizens. 



32 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

on from the political America to the industrial America; and the 
private cornbme of railroads, coal mines, or factories, etc., on into 
the people's industrial combine, one the people in their' political 
capacity, the other the same people but in their co-operative cap- 
asity. These are so many object lessons, showing us not only the 
advantage but the plain vi^ay to proceed legally, in obtaining a com- 
bme for ourselves as our forefathers obtained a hundred years ago 
a political government for themselves and us. Government owner- 
ship has been proposed by many. To be sure, as we have pointed 
out in the beginning of this letter, government ownership would 
necessarily prevent buying and selling homes and productive prop- 
erty, yet the people must own individually and not the political gov- 
ernment, collectively. But, wrapped up in this same buying and 
selling homes and productive property on which homes subsist, do 
we find continued and inevitable disaster. This buying or selling 
homes if prevented, may be aignified by calling it a diversion of the 
mind, but like tippling, smoking, chewing, etc., the masses of the 
people have paid dearly for it already. Gambling for example, is 
for the benefit of only a few, so this diversion like gambling, can 
cease altogether, without real hardship to any one. Of course I 
refer only to buying and selling homes and productive property in 
the support of the. home. I am perfectly well aware that I will be 
met with the "personal liberty" cry, but do not get excited and I 
will not. We are but children of a larger growth and as such we 
can most easily be persuaded to take a real loaf of bread instead of 
the picture of a loaf. A home to keep and a government title for it, 
instead of gushing rhapsody or childish glee about "a home to sell 
when I get big," or an interest to keep; in a solid combine which 
is co-extensive with every atom of productive property in the nation, 
instead of the existing will-o'-th'-wisp of "you can have the butter- 
fly (surplus property) if you can catch it." and then if you should 
catch it, it is but to find it a plumed moth, crushed, dying, dead. A 
life, with a home of your own and all that, that can mean, of family, 
friends, culture, refinement, a bill of fare, clothing; all, in a word, 
solid comfort; together with pleasant employment (better than idle- 
ness) yet sufficient to sustain and keep the home in perpetuity, 
instead of some strained relation to large property that you don't 
know one hour but that the title will be gone in the next, or in the 
other extreme of life if vou live in poverty, degradation and want; in 
fact, in any unprejudiced view you can possibly take you will be ready 
to have personal liberty to buy and sell homes and productive prop- 
erty. "Go, why have you mocked me so long." This home and all these 
comforts are for all, and that within easy reach of all, and mind you 
that it is now the ripe fruit of, the very next step in our civilization, 
which civilization has made its remarkable progress in spite of 
vicious competitive methods of business (what will it not do if unhin- 
dered by competition), yet ripe and good, but none too good to be 
true. Again, if cheating in buying and selling makes rogues out of 
boys, why pat them on the back approvingly and call it business, 
and punish them instead for breaking a toy; better call it stealing, 
truly, and let the toy go. Kindly, have we not gone wrong in our 
habit of commending the people who have riches; clergymen even 
hedge by apologizing and explain that they did not mean to say that 
it was not right for every young man to get rich. All of us know that 
there is posisible peril in getting rich and that it usually leads away 
from the Christ of Christian civilization. The man. the woman is 
far more valuable in His estimation. If we walk in "His steps" we 
find the man because we are hunting for the man. and now that we 
have found him. and now, if never before sufficiently developed to 



CAPlTAIvISTS. 33 

be trusted, let us join with him, let us co-operate with him,, help him 
that he may help us ever to be manly men and womanly women. 
You will observe that I am not talking about saints or angels, but 
flesh and blood men, in their industrial relations to each other. 
Christ in the industrial code laid down in the "as ye would 
that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them," clearly had 
m mind the getting of the greatest comfort and the greatest happi- 
ness to be found and as far away as possible from "the wory and the 
wolf." 

For anybody to be poor is somebody's mistake, did it ever occur 
to you that it is equally true for any one to be rich is somebody's mis- 
take? _ To admit that we have made these mistakes is only saying we 
are wiser today than we were yesterday. Shakespeare in his "Shy- 
lock and the Pound of Flesh," graphically describes a business man 
of today when brought up before the Judge (his own conscience we 
will assume). We each have one, but they are sadly out of repair: 

"Nor cut thou less or more, but just one pound of flesh, 
If thou takest more or less than a just pound. 

Be it so much as maketh light or heavy in the substance. 
Or the division of the twentieth part of one poor scruple. 

Nay if the scale do turn in the estimation of a ha.ir, 
Thou diest and thy goods are confiscate." 
_ I somehow imagine that after this decision that it was much 
easier for Shylock to reconcile himself to the loss of that pound of 
flesh as useless to him as two homes would have been, but to the other 
fellow did n€ed that identical pound of flesh and he did need one home. 
Why, bless you, I have tried it even. Losing surplus property is not 
a killing matter even if industrial equality made it necessary to loose 
property (which it does not by any means). There are other things 
more valuable than property. I heard of a rich mother who said 
pathetically, "I would rather lose it all than have my son become a 
drunkard." Two men talking about it one said, "don't you think that 
was epctravagant talk?" "No," said the other, "not if he were my 
son." Values after all are only relative. 

The manager of a railroad combine does by no manner of means 
forget himself as one of the combine when he tries to make his com- 
bine rich, no more will the rank and file of the industrial combine fail 
to include themselves as part of the combine when they try to make 
the combine rich by giving it their best endeavor. It's practically 
putting both men and money where they will do the most good, help- 
ing all and injuring none. When all are employed in production and 
distribution who are not now forcibly or willfully idle, they will all 
becomie rich rather than any poor. 

Christ said, and so will you when you get alone by yourself, "A 
man's life consisteth not in the abundance of things which he pos- 
sesseth." (and has to take care of). Enough is enough of anything. 
Solomon said "Give neither poverty nor ricnes," (as a real miserly 
load.) A nation of people combined in the common interest of all 
will make poverty, as we see it now all around us, impossible. I ap- 
preciate the feelings, however, of some of the rich that they may be 
giving up a certainty of conspicuous luxury for an uncertainty; they 
feel confident in the fact of all these facts that they can somehow 
keep their riches. But let me again remind you kindly that the highest 
have toppled to the bottom. Mark Twain once said that "when a man 
gets started down everything seems greased for the occasion." So it 
might be a good thing for Mr. Carnegie, Morgan, Rockefeller or 
you, my gentle reader, to fall into a good home, and so never 
reach the bottom at all. Let us continue to look at it fairly, yet in 
still another light; as it was with the slave and her mistress, so now 



34 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

with the rich and her servants. There are two sides to it — if 
mistress went out empty-handed (which she did not for slaves were 
surplus property), so did the slave. The slave and her mistress were 
both free; the slave was no better off, only free. Men may be free 
and yet not have much to boast over. Hunger, cold and nakedness 
are still as clamorous as ever, so in a sense no real benefit, but only 
a valuable sentiment is bestowed; but another step was practical 
possibly at that time (and aside let me say if Mr. Lincoln had not 
been prematurely cut off he would have put in practical operation 
some method which would secure for the slave a home and produc- 
tive employment, not as a matter of moral or religious sentiment, 
that some of us are so afraid of, but purely as an economic or busi- 
ness measure. The business interest of the ex-slave was our busi- 
ness interest then, as now. Can you see a similar if not a parallel 
case in the relation of the rich lady and her servant? You can follow 
it out ad infinitum. But I will only mention one; the slave helped 
to earn the wealth of her mistress, and so was entitled, in justice, to 
some share of it. Your servant helped to earn the wealth you 
have; possibly as much as you did (I say it kindly), and so is entitled 
in equal justice to some share of it. But in giving her a home, it is 
by no manner of means proposed by the industrial combine to dis- 
possess you of your home or your property, but rather to make 
these more secures — yes, absolutely secure — to you and your heirs, 
the home not even to be taxed. 

The finer your home, the more insecure it is to you now, be- 
cause others covet it and will take it away from you if they can 
(this ghastly fact freezes your very soul and you know it) ; but the 
industrial combine steps in heroically between and says that you 
may keep it forever, as it represents your ideal of happiness, per- 
haps, and we all have our ideals of happiness, and no man should be 
permitted to lay covetous hands on the home any more than on our 
person, in violence. That's what the Declaration of Independence 
means where it teaches that all are free and equal and entitled to 
life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Don't let your Bible and 
that Declaration be dust covered any longer. Read them; the spirit 
of these have made us rich as a nation in spite of our barbarous 
business methods — yea, we are the light of the wo.rld. but being 
brighter than others enables us to yet be brighter still and eliminate 
all of our vicious, covetous, murderous methods of downing busi- 
ness men. downing anybody, any way to get property — that we 
don't need any more than Ahab did the vineyard of his neighbor 
Naboth (I Kings, chapter xxi) — you have the history somewhere in 
the house, perhaps; hunt it up and read the incident, it will help you, 
yes, help us all, to see ourselves as others see us. In the light of this 
Bible reference, let us suppose we resolve in our hearts to be fair. 
"But," you say, "how can a man be fair and do business at all? We 
are compelled to meet the selfishness of competition with selfishness 
or go to the almshouse ourselves; aye, you say, we would willingly 
be fair, but no, we must fortify; we must get and keep our powder 
magazine well filled, in pure self-defense. Listen. An industrial 
combine of all business interests can be perfectly fair, but no indi- 
vidual or class combine can ever possibly be perfectly fair until the 
combine takes the place of competition. The rich man is largely 
what his environments have made him — no better, no worse, than 
other men; but when he wakes up to see that the war now on is be- 
tween the almighty dollar and Almighty God, he will step over the 
line on God's side as gallantly and quite as willingly as the homeless, 
and thus help to answer his own "Thy kingdom come," and the "Thy 
will be done in earth" will for the first time have its business, ini 



CAPITALISTS. 35 

fact, its only application, for it refers entirely to earth. Here on 
earth, we, as free moral agents, have the say, but God alone has all 
the say in Heaven, as well as the ultimate or final say on earth. 
Look at it: a nation in which every one held a position in its busi- 
ness affairs for which he or she was best adapted, and in which 
every one was aware of that fact, would be a nation fulfilling alTthe 
good promises of wealth; yet you, my dear man or woman, can have 
it, if you want it, and that without any restless anxiety. In the pres- 
ence of the "Thy kingdom come" (and this kingdom never did mean 
Heaven; it means to do as you would be done by in our dealings 
with men on earth, both here and now). Aye, God's ideal of business 
if you please, as taught by His Son. Is it not just about as bad to 
steal according to law as it is against the law? As bad to legislate a 
man out of a transcontinental railroad or even a small potato, as to 
slip a loaf of bread? A man of large estate makes a will. After 
giving his wife a home and a living, and through his continued regard 
for her, the balance of his large estate he places under trustees, to 
"be used to lift up society to the high level of his wife, and thus enrich 
her life to the highest possible degree. This is the rational and 
legitimate sequence of the industrial combine, and does it work 
any hardship to the rich? In writing this letter I know that I have 
been actuated by a spirit of candor and fairness; all the people are 
parties in interest, and must be enlisted, after a man has been 
Icindly consulted he will endure almost anything, if need be; on the 
other hand, if he feels that he or his interest has been ignored, he is 
made by this discourtesy a formidable adversary, and even if all are 
our friends and willing helpers, we have not a single friend too 
many. 

Let US dispassionately ask the question. Does money-getting 
pay? Look around you. Those who have it do not enjoy it even 
now, and tomorrow — possibly, today — he must go and leave it. How 
many do you know that have lost their health in a few years' 
■scramble for wealth when a moderate effort like that offered by the 
Industrial Combine would yield them an abundance, and preserve a 
sound body, and all that physical health can mean. 

How many of you business men, as well as laborers, ever knew 
a moment's respite from care and worry and anxiety, a continual 
feeling of goneness, lest the wolf should come and get in, in spite 
of your best endeavor to keep him away and tear your little flock? 
I am not so unsympathetic as to blame you; your great loving 
hearts impel you on. I would, with fatherly solicitude, reach out a 
restraining hand and with the other point out a better way for you. 
Turn your industrial affairs over to specialists — that's what the 
Combine means. You become a specialist, and quit trying to do 
everything and carry everything yourself. Trust others and they 
will as surely trust you. Put it to the test, prove it. Combines have 
and are doing it. Some are prone to say that the Combines are 
made up of the most dishonest men to be found; if so, don't you 
see if these so-called dishonest men are to be so implicitly trusted, 
as they are, certainly we that are more honest than they can be 
trustd more implicitly. By so trusting otheTs enables you to 
pigeon-hole your business and divide up your time, giving a little 
to your friends, a little to your family, a little to the beauties of 
nature, a little to finer sentiment, a little to culture, a little to love, 
sympathy, refinement — aye, and religion, if you will. The beauty of 
it is in knowing that you will be cared for and sustained in plenty to 
your journey's end, and that your family and loved ones are safe 
and will be cared for a hundredfold better than your selfishness can 
■or ever will be able to do. 



36 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

You poor Atlas, carrying the world on your back! Just think 
of your figure, stooping and weary. The Combine can carry your 
load like a feather weight, if you will trust it. The wiser capitalists 
are already trusting it. By skillful planning, those who are not 
capitalists can be included in the benefits without loss to the rich. 
The rich will not object but rather extend a helping hand. We can 
trust them, they»can trust us, and we will trust each other in our 
industrial affairs, as we do in political affairs, and this solves the 
whole industrial problem. I could not be so positive were it not for 
the presence of the Combine and the confidence that all the people 
have in the idea — how to appropriate and utilize it is a matter of a 
very short time. It is not a stranger to the rich; it is not a pretender 
to the poor; it is not an untried experiment to the American people; 
if there is any one unfriendly to it a better acquaintance will set us 
right. 

Mergers are showing us how practically easy it is to multiply 
the number of stockholders and at the same time increase the value 
of the assets. Standard oil stock then will be as valuable as now 
and no more dangerous to the political liberty of the bootblack 
than to Mr. Rockefeller. Corporation was a good gift of political 
government to industry and was never intended to be anything but 
a blessing to all the people. This progressive way, mark you, has 
none of the humiliation in it — to any of the parties concerned, that 
a compromise always implies — none of the chances for alleging par- 
tiality that are always given by courts of arbitration; none of the 
twitting of the capitalist against the laborer or the laborer against 
the capitalist of "I brought you to time" rather, each are entitled to 
feel that each are and have been a necessary and significant factor 
to the solution of this great industrial problem. 




What Effect Will the Industrial Combine 
Have Upon the Press? 

I must confess that I approach the answer to this question with 
a trepidation somewhat analogous to that of a young man on his- 
first visit to see a young lady, above him in ability, yet whom he 
fondly hopes in time to marry. He may know that he brings to her 
a character worthy of her highest esteem; yet, for the time being, he 
cannot help asking himself another question quite as important, 
"What will she say and do?" I am urged forward by my own heart 
and mind with unbounded faith in my mission, believing that the 
press will not take advantage of my acknowledged inexperience as- 
a writer of books to do the object of my infatuation an injustice, yet, 
like Mrs. Bollingbrook, "I would rather have my plan of conciliation 
spoken ill of than not 3t all." In answering the above question, I 
will say, "I don't know"; and perhaps it would be as well, for both 
book and cause, for me to leave them there, and let your elegance, 
experience and better ability make predictions and answer the ques- 
tion for me, only that in answering you observe that the Combine 
idea, wherever you find it, is the family idea, which is one of self-in- 
terest as distinct from selfishness. Neither wages or strikes are 
applicable to or can exist in the family or the Combine, the larger 
family. Don't I beg of you go off now on some tangent of oppo- 
isition but rather stop and ask yourself the simple question What 
would the Combine do in this, that, or the other industrial or busi- 
ness matter, and let that settle it in your mind and heart and journal. 
But I will venture to say: 

1st. That definite work is susceptible of definite limitations; i. e.,. 
a definite hour comes or should come to us each day that we feel 
duty done, and we can turn to a privilege (I apply this to the read- 
ing public as well). The Industrial Combine will and must, from, its- 
business character, pigeon-hole every department of labor (and I 
always mean both mental and manual labor), so that we all can have 
a way of knowing when we are doing our full duty to our families^ 
This definiteness in itself will make and leave us free to take up a 
paper, magazine, or book, and devour it with a relish, hence I argue 
that, as men and women, we can, by the good offices of the Combine, 
have a definite time to read and (as I have shown elsewhere) much' 
moire time than now. 

The combine age will demand more and more writers, and those 
who do write can and will give it not only undivided but undis- 
tracted attention (undisturbed by the wolf that some of us know^ 
about and all of us have heard about), so that literature will be 
more breezy and reflect virtue from the choice of the writers, as- 
there will be no longer a seeming necessity to cater to -vice; that is, 
to the vicious tastes of the reading public, for the sake of getting in 
return bread and butter for our own families. Hence we can say 
confidently that the press will be permanent and appreciated more 
and more, and its productions better and its existence a more real 
necessity to the continued happiness and well-being of our greater 
family. If the Combine fails to be immediately adopted as a new 



•38 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

center of faith and practice, it will not be because of its inherent 
deficiency, but because of the incompetency and inactivity of its 
friends. 

2d. It is said, "Ideas are not made; they grow"; but the press 
does mold them into an opinion, makes it public, and then molds it 
to a point where it is readily crystallized into law. It is not to be 
supposed for a moment that the press will wittingly work against 
its own interest; neither will they pull down established methods 
to try an experiment or abandon a certainty (as imperfect as it 
may be) for an uncertainty; yet of all the elements of progress, the 
press is the most potent and progressive, and the People's Indus- 
trial Combine appeals to it in confidence. A crisis is pending and 
something must be done at once. The crucial hour has come, and it 
is not only clear that something must be done and at once, but of 
magnitude tantamount to, yea, superior in force and attractiveness 
to existing combines (as great and powerful as they are), and worthy 
not only of their respect and indorsement, but also of the respect and 
indorsement of all the people, including the press. We are not 
called upon to pull down or tight or destroy anything, but simply 
to move on in the even tenor of our way and take in the Combine 
and use it. Evolution is ever progressive, and the Industrial Com- 
bine is simply the next step in its progress if we take it promptly 
and heartily, revolution, which always retards, will be unnecessary. 
Our country very foolishly halted and postponed freeing the Negroes 
by the peaceable methods of evolution until it was too late, and did 
we not pay dearly for the four million slaves, both in blood and 
treasure? The proposed combine is the only peaceable solution of 
a greater matter than Negro slavery, and will we dilly dally until it 
is too late to accomplish a peaceable adjustment? I would have 
you see that it is not simply a matter- of choice between two evils, 
but rather a reaching-out for greater good, and no department will 
be the recipient of this good more than will the press. One of the 
many good points the Combine will afford is the liberty of a choice 
of vocations. The now intense and inordinate demand to "stick to 
what you are at," or starve, will be easily corrected and men can 
quietly and assuredly take up the vocation to which they are the 
best adapted; and we do enjoy doing a thing that we are adapted to 
-do and we do not think of it as being work. How very many misfits 
have our nefarious methods of competition in business made neces- 
sary? Lawyers carrying the hod and hod-carrie.rs trying to prac- 
tice law; a mechanic following the plow and a good farmer proving 
to be a very poor mechanic! We would be as happy as a bird in its 
home nest, or every ready and willing to do our full share when in 
our own appropriate niche; for example, we may feel compelled to 
write, when we know we would rather plow or measure calico, or 
keep a home for a loved one; but we can make a dollar in this way, 
and we need the dollar today, and we have no choice but to push 
blindly and incoherently ahead into darkness, but with a goneness 
of feeling akin to despair, and all for the >vant of a little previous 
planning on the part of society, which it becomes the business of 
society, through the Combine, to do. What is the use of created 
good at all if we must forever take the evil? What is the use of 
Heaven if there is no way to get to it? You may mistake me, I am 
not in the domain of religion unless you are pleased to call pure 
financial business transactions religious. I am speaking absolutely 
of material things, not spiritual or supernatural, and the innocent 
warbler that says that the good, the true and the beautiful is re- 
served for the sweet bye-and-bve and the home of the soul, is an 
■impediment to Christian civilization, and must be told by society, 



THE PRESS. 39> 

in its triumphal march, to stand aside. This earth is to be made the 
best possible, for it may be the best world some will ever have to 
enjoy, so we must rnake it as good as we can. I wish also to be 
explicit in this, that the Golden Rule is for here and now and for 
both saint and sinner; we will not need it in either Heaven or hell,^ 
but we do need it on this earth as an industrial business rule — a 
standard of measurement. We can have self-interest in business,, 
and "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even 
so to them" is a cool business proposition and possible to any man 
who wants to be fair, be he Christian or infidel. I dwell on this 
point to rivet your attention on the fact that, though the good 
results of the Combine are upward, — a look up, a lift up — its per- 
fection is material and is to be obtained by material men in their 
material capacity; and in this world a matter-of-fact flesh and blood' 
movement. To be explicit, is not every man entitled to a wife and 
every woman entitled to a husband, and each made of the best ma- 
terial that the mind and matter of society can, by studied care and 
skill, produce? And should we not, by every means possible, con- 
tinue to maintain and improve the characters of that husband and 
that wife and their offspring by hygienic law, enforced by statute 
law? If not, why not? 

Aye, there was a time when it was nobody's business, but let it 
be our business from now on. If the Combine's Board of Health 
finds that anything makes the man less a manly man than the one 
that statute law gave in marriage to that unsuspecting, inno~cefit 
woman, is it not business, and legal business, too, to say, "No, sir; 
we gave that woman a man and we propose to make good our part 
of the contract. Society, sir, has gone out of the business of mak- 
ing drunks out of sober men, or opium fiends out of unsuspecting 
women. Men don't want them; women don't want them,;_ drunks and 
fiends, sir, don't belong to our higher state of civilization; society 
don't want them." This is legal business and a logical sequence of 
the Combine; and then, sir, the Combine has a pecuniary interest 
involved, namely, that every man and woman must needs be at his 
or her best, physically" (a point which we have discussed at length 
elsewhere). 

The combine will make the earth, not a heaven, but a beautiful 
earth, full of sunshine and flowers, but the best of all, full of manly 
men and good women, and a nation of homes and mothers. Pro- 
fessor Drummond, in his lecture on "The Evolution of Mother- 
hood," says, "All the machinery, all the preceding work of nature^ 
is to the end that she may produce a mother." 

3d. What effect will the Industrial Combine have upon the 
press? It will not only make it more prominent and useful, but 
it will increase its responsibility. You can't evade it if you would; 
and you would not if you could. If it is delayed you are largely 
responsible. When in active operation, the press, no doubt, must 
frequently differentiate between self-interest and selfishness, making 
it clear to the obtuse; the clearer vision of the press must of neces- 
sity be eyes to the short-sighted, for we are not governed so much 
by a majority of hands as we are by a majority of intellect. Let our 
intellect be in the proper proportions of both mind and heart, so 
that it may take on a compassion for rich as well as poor, the intel- 
ligent as well as the ignorant, the bigot as well as those modestly 
hiding out of sight, the sober as well as the drunk; and with a phil- 
anthropy, whose gifts in charity is really love, and only equaled by our 
sincerity of purpose in the interest of humanity. Please observe 
that the Industrial Combine hts no other form of government but 
a republic. The people in their corporate capacity must govern. 



•4-0 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

industry. And it is clear that no republic is ready for it but our 
United States, and we have not been ready for it until now, and 
■we are justified in adopting it now, because an emergency is upon 
us. We must act now and act wisely, and on a scale and with a 
force equal to the emergency; anything less is insipid and folly and 
must result in sickening failures. The patriotism of the nation jus- 
tifies this movement, and thus progress steps on and up and into 
Christian civilization m fact, and, as will be seen, an injustice to no 
one, but a real blessing to all, rich and poor alike. The press can, 
by throwing light on the seeming doubtful and obscure, show that 
self-interest is contemplated in the verv nature of things to become 
the legitimate offspring of self-government; and that trying every 
case before the tribunal of "my own self-interest" will most effect- 
ually take the strike out of labor and the poison out of liquor; and 
capital, willingly and without violence or coercion, will soon get 
within its legitimate metes and bounds with becoming alacrity and 
precision — existing combines, merging financial interests, have 
shown and are showing us the way, and we are thankful to them 
for it. They have taught us (possibly unintentionally) that compe- 
tition is not necessary to business at all; aye, and is no part or 
parcel of industry, and that the old saying, "Competition is the life 
of trade," is a delusion and a snare. So it is plainly reasonable that 
all that remains for us to do is to think out a way to get into it our- 
selves, and then act upon the Combine's idea. 

The press will not only be a necessary agent in bringing this 
People's Combine out and crystallizing its necessary accompani- 
ments into law, but also in holding it steady in its purpose in and 
during our transient state (as did authors and writers on self-gov- 
ernment, when it was being established). The world has never seen 
before an expression of so much business common sense as these 
several combines are exemplifying today, and it is impossible to stop 
them. Political government has no right to try to stop them unless 
they transgress law; why, because they are authorized by statute 
law; they have their incorporation papers, and what has Congress 
to oppose in them? Their opposition presents the strange anomaly 
of a body of men opposing themselves, a State granting a monopoly 
and then abrogating it, trying to tear it down, or of giving a man a 
suit of clothes and forbidding him to put it on. Yet, labor in the 
abstract must and of a right ought to be kindly pacified; it has just 
reason to complain of unfairness; its grievances are real and must 
te adjusted. I live in the interest of labor, but a man hates to see 
his own friends deceive or disgrace themselves. There is only one 
way to adjust the matter, and I am glad there is only one, so there 
can be no dividing up on a choice between two — a People's Indus- 
trial Combine, authorized and acting as any other combine, thus 
placing labor and capital under one management. 

Existing combines are part of the people, hence parties in in- 
terest, and we need their iriendship. Labor organized or unorgan- 
ized is a significant part of the people. Why childe either of them 
away? Besides, we are really so near to a better civilization, why 
not begin even now, not only to be rational, but to be fair. If their 
hearts have not quite carried them over into the domain of self-in- 
terest, will we not give diplomacy a chance to bring us friends, not 
only from the existing combines, but from every possible quarter? 
Why ofifend any? We must, if possible, have all as friends; or if not 
friends, then as reconciled enemies, much as the thirteen colonies 
did when self-government was first enacted, and which we, too, in 
time, can and will make into the best of friends. Our interests are 
all centered in the Combine, so let us stop quarreling with any who 



THE PRESS. 41 

J^y tW '"". clearly, and move steadily onward, persuading as we go. 
and thus enter the Combine age m the opening light of self-interest 
convincmg all of the rectitude of our intentions and of our ultimate 
industrial triumph. We are as near to self-interest in industrial 
business mat ers today as our fathers were at noon on that glorious- 
ourth day of July 1776, on which the "Declaration" was signed at 
two o clock, and self-government was flung to the breeze on its own 
merits and the people as a whole were for the first time trusted 
with the political affairs of a great nation— and right well have we 
stood the test. So now, as then, we are led by the God of nations- 
right up to where we can declare for self-interest in our industrial 
affairs— will we sign our name?— and as thev, have somethincr defi- 
nite and decisive to work for? They did, and we can, work o^ut the 
mmutia as we proceed. Will we do it? Let the press. 

Show an uplifted hand with a pen in it, then let your eyes fall 
upon your own paper and write, "An injustice done to one is the 
concern of all." Sign it and live by it, and it is ours, as emphatical' 
and complete as political independence was when the formality of 
signing had been accomplished. I have come to you with a definite 
program. We have 'squandered enough precious time in hazy, inco- 
herent generalities. Co-operation stands ready and is able 'to do 
anything that industry needs to have done in the interests of the 
whole people 




Young Men. 

My object particularly in writing this letter to young men is to 
bring out an example of their power when associated together, for 
the good that they can do when relieved from incrusted and em- 
barrassing business environments that shut them in from being full, 
frank, and fair with each other in their social and business relations, 
as well as to bring out boldly that self-interest is noble and humane, 
and the very opposite of selfishness, which is narrow, mean and 
despicable; and that our competitive business training for young 
men — all men — has heretofore been from the center of selfishness, 
from which all its so-called business reforms must have radiated; 
hence, all necessarily competitive and bad, as pure water does not 
flow from an impure fountain. Consequently, business cannot reform 
from selfishness into self-interest, but it must adopt the new center 
from which combination, with its co-operation in business, can flow, 
as pure water from its pure fountain head, this new center being the 
combination of self-interests personified. I hope to be able to rep- 
resent the spirit that lays behind each — competition in business as 
we have known it, and its antithesis; combination, as we do and will 
know it, by giving you a story of adventure. 

A young business man of about thirty years of age, and rich 
as Croesus, but tired to death with the multiplicity of his duties, de- 
termined to leave his various departments of business (as hazard- 
ous as it may seem to be to men competitively educated) to super- 
intendents, and slip away and rest, letting only his lovely wife and 
young family and his private (secretary, know of his whereabouts, 
who were to act for him in any matter demanding immediate atten- 
tion. He took a night train, with only a gun and some suitable 
blankets and necessary food, for he expected to hunt and fish, his 
objective point being a cave in a mountain forest, described to him 
as unexplored, but from its elevation on the mountainside, and 
from the mouth of it his city home could be seen though fifty miles 
away. He finally arrived at the cave without incident, but more 
weary by his climb from the railroad depot, carrying his heavy load, 
than he had ever been in all his life. 

After peering into the mouth of the uninviting cave he con- 
cluded to lie down and rest awhile on the outside, and immediately 
fell asleep. A sharp miountain breeze set up from the west and the 
soughing of the mountain pines, so different in sound from the 
clatter of feet on the sidewalk and the horses' hoofs on the pave- 
ment in the great city, awoke him, and as he sat up and looked 
around the solitude of his surroundings produced a profound impres- 
sion; but this, he said to himself, would be grand in contrast and 
comparison with the intensity of yesterday were it not for one thing, 
and that is, an agreeable companion to see what I see, to hear what 
I hear, to feel in sympathy with my feelings, to taste what I taste 
and smell these sweet odors that shut me in. Truly, it was not in- 
tended that man should live alone, but for and with others; yet, why 
has my business training taught me to savagely devour my neighbor 
in any and every business transaction until I am loaded down with 



YOUNG MEN. 43^ 

wealth so that I get into a irenzy at times and feel as though I must 
take something to tide me over it; and yet, I know that every in- 
dulgence makes me weaker, makes me less a manly man. But 
pshaw! we all do it; and as I remember, the motto of my Guild is, 
"A short life and a merry one." That is about all there is to it; 
yes, that is so, and were it not for an eternity (that I am not sure 
about), I would not care to ever go back to business, but lie here 
and sleep forever. But as it is, I am not quite ready, somehow, for 
eternity. The fellows all tell me there is no Heaven, no Hell, as my 
parents taught; but they will have a pretty hard time to make me 
believe what I am sure not one of them believes himself. I guess, 
it is good to get alone with oneself once in awhile; for the way busi- 
ness is piled onto a fellow he can't have time to think. I do try to 
think sometimes, but some itemi of business crowds in and I fall into- 
a dazed kind of stupor and feel as though I must take some stimu- 
lant, so of late I keep it handy. It's a bad, bad way to do. I do 
wonder where I will round up; then I wonder again if there is no 
better way, but business is business and I'll have to go back to it,, 
I am sorry to say. Why, my teeth are chattering with the cold; I 
must build a fire. 

.Let us follow another young man of about the same age and 
like courage and physique, but from the other extreme of active 
life. He, poorly equipped for hunting, had resolved to get away for 
a short time, if possible, from his environments of poverty (and a. 
sense of degradation which accompanies the poor, and which he, by 
the force of circumstances, fought hard to conquer but failed), and 
go somewhere, anywhere, where poverty and the cause of it (com- 
petitive business) would not be so apparent, hoping somehow that 
"out of sight would be out of mind." Not wishing to be called a 
tramp, he started at mddnight, planning to get out of the settlements, 
surrounding the great city before daylight. Weary with his long 
day's walk, he finally arrived, late in the evening, near to the point 
of his destination, expecting to make the inhospitable and naked 
walls of the cave a protection to him against the chill of the'tnoun- 
tain air during the night. As for blankets, he had none. 

Through an opening among the trees he discovered a smoke 
which rriade him hesitate, but peering through the boughs, on a 
nearer approach, he saw an elegantly dressed stranger with a kindly, 
clean-shaven face and the air of a perfect gentleman quietly cooking 
his supper. After a time of argument with himself as to what 
(dressed shabbily as he was) would be the best thing to do, he finally 
stepped frankly out, resolved to present his manhood rather than his. 
clothing, and was greeted with a cordial handshake that thrilled 
him by its genuine heartiness, altogether unexpected, and still 
greater was his astonishment when he heard the remark, "I am very,, 
very glad to see you, sir, and away from business, where we can both 
meet on a common basis as man and man. I wish you to share 
with me this evening meal and become my comipanion." Thus the 
hard lines between this representative of the poor and this un- 
plumed knight, representing the rich, vanished as the smoke of the 
camp-fire, when they actively did once get together, as men away 
from competitive business influence, and were led only by a common, 
interest, which revealed to them their brotherhood. It was business 
comipetition that had made them enemies in the first place and it 
had kept them apart these weary years — weary? yes, weary for both. 
These thoughts flitted through their minds as they talked and ate 
together, and the thought, "Must the time really come so soon 
when this good-hearted, cordial young man must be my enemy again 
as of yore?" came to each simultaneously as they agreeably talked' 



44 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

to each other. In the twilight they saw a figure in the distance, 
whether of man or beast they could not determine, but each man's 
weapon was in his hands and this feeling in his heart, "We will 
«tand together." Presently, through the gloaming, appeared a man, 
but of such a friendly attitude as to disarm them at once. Most 
liearty congratulation passed between them and an open-hearted 
friendship in explaining the various causes that brought them to- 
gether made each of them perfectly at ease in the presence of the 
others. And as the stars twinkled at them and the great electric 
lights, plainly visible in the far-away city, kindly reminded them of 
home, they talked well into the night of their past history and told 
instances of the causes of the estrangemient between the classes. 
Finally, spreading their blankets, and with a better realization of the 
ruin wrought by competitive business than they ever could have had 
before, with a genuine kindred of sympathy for each other they 
went to sleep, all sharing alike with the others for the first time in 
their lives. None of them were surprised by the refreshing change 
that sweet sleep had wrought in their tired bodies, but rather to find 
themselves possessed of a nobler purpose in their souls than had 
ever before dawned on them with an opening day, an experience of 
which none of them had ever thought himself capable. They hunted 
and fished together during the day, each one learning from the 
■other. Night was approaching before they knew it, and as they came 
near the camp, one said, "Why not utilize the cave tonight?" An- 
other observed that, as the bonfire from the outside shone into 
its deep recesses last night, it seemed very inviting. The third 
laughingly said, "How would it do to build a fire in the center, so 
that it would shine out fromi the new center that we have been talk- 
ing about today?" So necessary material was soon in the middle 
of the cave, ready for the object lesson, and as the opening light 
shone around about them as they stood together, looking at the 
revelations of the light, a feeling came over them that they were 
standing in the presence \)f Him who made the cave and light and 
the warmth and comfort that all these things brought, as well as we 
who are here to represent (and most fitly do represent) the Maker 
of it all. And as their eyes wandered from one sparkling gem to 
another, as the reflected light made it all glorious within, one 
suddenly pointed his finger and said, "Look!" and the one that came 
last began to spell out and interpret an inscription within (as he ex- 
plained it to be) in old Hebrew, Latin and Greek, "As ye would 
that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them." As they 
stood, speechless for a time, one, as if to break the spell, managed 
to ask himself rather than his comrades, "How came it there? Who 
wrote it? What does it all mean?" Each of the others said, "Your 
questions are all pertinent, and we must together think them out." 
And as they prepared, cooked and ate their supper of fowl and fish, 
one observed: "It seems necessary to social conversation for us to 
each have a name. Yes, and as i came last, you can call me 'No. 3.' 
Ha! ha!" "Then I am 'No. i.' " "And me, '2.'" — a witty reminder 
that he had read of New York politics of twenty-five years ago. 
"How comfortable the fire has made the cave!" "Yes, fire, like busi- 
ness, is a good servant, but a hard-hearted, relentless master." "As 
I am the most benefited, it is relevant that I should 'say thanks' for 
this supper." "That reminds me," said No. i, "of my early train- 
ing." "Yes, to be sure," said No. 3; and as they ate and mieditated', 
No. 3 finally broke the silence: "In view of the meal we have before 
us, has it ever occurred to you how soon capital would be ex- 
hausted by consumption were it not for labor? This is a wonderful 
subject, but just to playfully skirt around it, I have caught no fish. 



YOUNG MEN. 45 

and was only able to take a bird or so, and No. i declared I could 
not hit a thing with my gun, though it's the best that money could 
buy,_ and could only fish today like a boy of ten." "It's no credit to 
me, said No. 2, "that I took so much with my old rifle, for it was 
in my hands so much when I was a lad that it was said to be a part 
of me, and two or three times during these later years has been my 
only diversion." "Every one needs diversion," said No. 3. "Yes, 
but not too much of it," said No. i, "for I was almiost ruined by it.' 
My father being independently rich, left me to myself, and did not 
require anything of me—^no trade, no profession— meaning, in thr 
goodness of his soul that I, as his only son, should never want for 
anything; and when I heard you read that Latin inscription up 
there it came to me as a reproof, 'Why did I not use my oppor- 
tunities to learn the languages, classics, etc.?' When I had so much 
time I just squandered it in pure wantonness." "I can see now," 
said No. 2, "that an education is very desirable in every way; but 
really I could not see much good that it could ever do me, as I 
could never utilize it, having no pull, no rich or great people to set 
me up, and then, back at home, as long as I can remember, it was 
necessary for us children to work early and late. A big family, and 
father being dead, mother had a tough time of it. I married at 
twenty-three, and now have a family of my own, and as wife and I 
were talking a few days ago, it seemed that neither of us knew 
much else than hard work. 'I,' she said, 'often wish I could just run 
away from it all, just for a week; but I can't,' and laughing to keep 
back the tears, said, 'The next best thing is for you to skip out for 
a week, especially now that the strike is on.' 'But what will you 
and the children do? I have got to work at something — I don't 
know what.' 'Yet, you can do nothing here,' she said; 'there is 
practically no work, for you can't work outside of your own Union, 
you know; you dare not be a scab, and a big man like you can't beg; 
successfully, and not even as well as I could,' she said, laughing.' 
'Besides, beggars haven't much of a show, now that we are all get- 
ting to be poor alike, and the rich people have become so accusi- 
tomed to beggars that they turn them all away; so you just take 
two of the five dollars and go somewhere; it's been most ten years 
since you have had a vacation. When you didn't have work, you 
had to work harder to hunt work.' I told her, after I swallowed a 
big lump in my throat, that I would never take a cent of the money, 
"but I would like to go to the old cave once more. It's only sixty 
miles by the old trail, and by starting at midnight I can walk it 
before dark. She was silent for a long while, then said slowly, 'Why. 
is it that there is such inequality? Some have so much time and 
money that they are loaded down and squander both, and here we 
are having hardly time even to be good, or money to keep us out of 
the almshouse, let alone a little to go on an excursion; and it's plain 
now that we will have to give up ever having a home of our own' 
— and then she turned her head away, I knew to keep me from see- 
ing tears. Presently, by a forced cheerfulness, she asked, 'Is it pos- 
sible for you to walk all the way?' 'Yes, I can walk, but that's not 
it; I can't leave you to take care of the children; it looks like run- 
ning away from duty.' 'Never mind me,' she quickly interrupted, 
^I'U get along somehow; we can live for a week on three dollars, so 
you take the two dollars and go, and tell me about all you have seen 
when you come back,' and nothing would do her but that I must 
take the two dollars (and I did, but slipped around to the landlord 
and paid it on the rent) and kissing her and the sleeping children 
good-bye started." Neither of the other men could take the risk 
of speaking, but presently he began again, saying: "I wish they 



46 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

could be here to have this outing with me." No. i had regained 
courage to speak: "I am not appalled by your pathetic recital of 
facts, or your penury, for we, as the rich, have known these facts all 
along. But I am appalled that, knowing the facts, we have not 
thought out some effective way of setting these wrongs right. It 
seemis that, up to the present time, we have not cared enough ta 
raise a protest equal to the emergency, but it is plain we must care 
enough to really do — yes, do anything that may be necessary to 
be done to set ourselves right. Why, we are not brutes, but I must 
confess it looks like it. Whenever we have been alone with our- 
selves we have known the poor were just as good, just as capable as 
we, but 'none are so blind as those who won't see.' As we stand, 
self-condemned, self-convicted and ashamed, because we did not 
care enough to even be civil, whether my mother was right or the 
fellows, the fact that an injustice is being done is our concern, and 
the very want of gallantry in us, as men, taking everything in sight, 
leaving women to stand, embarrassed, why, our chivalry ought ta 
have made us even polite! True, we have made some spasmodic 
efforts to be fair in charity but never because it was really right to. 
be fair. We have always insisted on having a controlling interest 
in the business so that we could strut around and show up our rich- 
ness and self-importance, to the humiliation (as I can see now) of 
the poor. I have never been able to see my real selfishness to such 
an extent as to carry with it a determination to quit such meanness. 
I do wonder at the long suffering and patience of the destitute, 
when they knew that they were not being treated fairly, especially 
when they knew that we knew it and did not even mean to be fair." 
After these expressions of an awakened conscience, the silence 
was so profound as to be felt. Presently No. 3, clearing his throat, 
said, "I do not mean to chafe you by saying that I am glad to hear 
you say these things, and that with such genuine frankness, for it is 
far better, taking human nature into account as it is, for you, as a 
representative of the rich, to feel self-accused and self-condemned, 
than it would be for the very poor, or me, as a representative of the 
middle class, to say these things to you. We can see that you might 
have resented us as being impertinent, and your antagonism might 
have been aroused and your friendship lost, rather than your hearty 
comradeship gained. Scolding, ever so mildly or politely given, 
must not come in to chide away a single friend from making a com- 
bined and honest effort to establish a business relation that will be 
to the self-interest of all. rich and poor alike. I am glad of another 
thing, that is, to have this disrobing of character around this pleas- 
ant campiire precede any surmising regarding that inscription. Yet, 
each one of us seems to be impressed by its very presence, and we 
seem to intuitively feel that we alreadv know what it means to us, 
that it does touch each and every one of us and the classes we repre- 
sent in our industrial business relations with one another, and also 
that Tt holds a principle that will somehow solve the problem. In 
fact, if it hung as a business motto on the walls of every sitting- 
room and office or counting-house in America, as it hangs over the 
entrance of this neglected cave, and has for perhaps 1900 years, and 
all business planning w&re done in is presence, as we are 
in its presence here tonight, then all could agree on a 
bill of rights, as we do here and now. From its very wording 
— 'men unto men' — makes it clearly a business motto and of busi- 
ness signification, and we all feel instinctively that it originated in a 
master mind. So. who made it, when was it written, what does it 
mean? — are all answered by our underlying common sense, when we 
thus try to apply it to our every-day dealings with each other, for it 



YOUNG MEN. 47 

is so vividly true that it matters not whether it was written thou- 
sands of years ago or is still wet with ink, or whether it was written 
by a god or the most humble specimen of humanity, — it does mean 
and is a business center. To love ourselves, that we may love 
others, has never been tried as a business principle by any nation. 
It's the exact antithesis of loving ourselves that we may fight others, 
as we do in competitive business. The proper relations of business 
can just as well and as properly be of love as of hate, and we know 
the relations of love are most pleasant and agreeable to all, so by 
just moving over from the domain of hate into the domain of love, 
and from this a new center of business letting self-interest radiate, 
bestowing equal benefits in the interests of all, we bring to our- 
selves the chief benefit for we must love ourselves, yea, we do love 
ourselves and m(ust sustain our individuality, our very selves; for out- 
side of this is nonentity, — nothing!" 

No. I seemied ready to say something: "I was just thinking, if an 
observer from one of the planets were looking down upon our 
nation, to study us and ascertain for himself what kind of beings we 
are, having seen our past business methods of dealing with each 
other, he would be perfectly excusable if we had to tell him that we 
are human and really have souls; and then to prove or establish our 
veracity, we had to refer him to our constitution and Declaration of 
Independence, and tell him 6ur fore fathers enacted these, (and you 
can surely believe they had souls, by what they did) and that we are 
their sons. He would innocently reply, "Why, I never would have 
suspected it by your business methods; excuse me, for it is a difficult 
and delicate distinction to make between the beast you call the lion 
and another who habitually takes the lion's share; but being a 
stranger, I am still a little incredulous, when I see your magnificent 
progress, and ask, have you not really got some power hidden away 
somewhere out of sight, to put in the balance to overcome your 
lack of weight in soul matter, as represented by your business 
methods? — a kind of atonement or propitiation for your lack of 
soul? — for surely your business miethods are diametrically opposed 
to progress, and your civilization has had to make headway against 
them and not because of them." 

No. 2 had been a modest but very attentive listener, but 
now ventured to say, "T can see that my class has been very defici- 
ent in this soul matter, as you so aptly call it. For example, in our 
diplomacy we have been forever wanting, — on the defensive to be 
sure, but the question, 'Might not we have done better?' sinks into 
insignificance in comparison with the question, 'Can we not do bet- 
ter now?' I believe we miust and will; I can see that we have stopped 
short on the mere discovery that there is something radically wrong, 
without an honest effort to do our part in setting the wrong right. 
True, we have fought to the finish through many a strike, and our 
siuccesses are infinitesimally small in comparison with our failures; yet 
we have not as a whole tried toi find a better way, but still keep it 
up, and now as I try to study out how that motto up there can help 
us, I confess I cannot make it apply to states and conditions of life 
so unequal as ours are; yet whoever wrote it must have meant it 
to be universal in its application, and if so it would be idle as a 
motto, which evidently it was intended to be, if we poor (as we feel 
ourselves to be) could neither obey or appropriate its teachings. So 
I can see, if we have a will to do, there must be some way. Some 
have said that people are poor because they are imprudent; maybe 
so — but Mary and I did save up some mioney when we were first 
married, to buy us a little home, put some of it in a bank, the bank 
failed (they said they couldn't help it, maybe not, but most of our 



48 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

money was gone) and: then sickness took the balance and we have 
been heart-sick ever since. But I am cheered by that motto; I can 
hardly tell why, but it does set life for us poor people in a new light. 
It does say, 'As ye would have them do unto- you.' We can surely 
tell them what we so much want, we can surely do that, and we do 
want a home. We can tell them also that we want a chance to work 
and make an honest living. Yes. we can tell that, and even if we 
have so little, so very little, to finish out the motto with, we can try 
to 'do ye even so unto them.' If we all had homes of our very own 
and a chance to work sufficient to support that home, I think we 
could do anything and everything that the motto says." 

It is plain that the poor people will be the most benefitted, yet- 
the government gives 'homesteads now to the people that are situ- 
ated to go onto them and live, but how can we get to them, and how 
can we build a house, and where can we get work? I confess I can't 
see very deep, but if the government can give i6o acres as a home- 
stead, why can't it keep enough of the land to build us a house with, 
and make some terms with the railroad company to take us to the 
place, and plan to give us some work until we could get a start, and 
after a time, we to pay it all back? We don't want something for 
nothing, as a poor class we resent something for nothing. That's 
charity, and we abominate charity; we can pay for everything we need, 
if we have a fair chance to work, yet, pardon my vehemence. The 
rich people mean well in giving us in charity, but it's exasperating 
to us when we remember that we are entitled by right (because we 
also are men and women) to an even chance to earn, and then an 
equal chance to have and hold what we have done our part in pro- 
ducing. I can't see yet how the government can give all the people 
a home to live in and a sure job of work, but I feel sure that it can; 
for if it can spend millions in irrigation and in building fleets, it 
might go on andi authorize a corporation whose business it should be 
to see to it that everybody has a home and on the same conditions 
as a homestead. And if government has the right to employ a mil- 
lion men as a standing army, corporation can emply fifty million 
in its factories and farms. Government ownership, I am told, is 
hardly practical, but there must be some way very nearly akin to it. 
Not one in a thousand, probably, having no home, could take a 
homestead of i6o acres; but the other 999 would, if they could, take 
and prefer, a villa lot, a village lot, or a town lot, with a little home 
on it, and prefer it to a whole 160 acres a thousand miles away, with 
no chance to get there, no house to live in, and no way to make a 
Jiving if they could get there. The facts are, none but those who do 
not particularly need to have 160 acres given to them can possibly 
avail themselves of a homestead. Yet a homestead is the most prac- 
tical measure thus far authorized by the government. 

I am indeed enjoying this evening with you, as you have 'suc- 
ceeded in causing me to feel that I am really equal to you both in 
my right as a man, and I am proud of it, if it is only for one brief 
space of time. Would that it could continue, that is if it could be 
so planned that it would not injure either of you or the classes you 
represent." 

No. I arose, and sat back upon his feet (as campers db), 
and with a strong gesture of the right arm, said, emphatically, "We 
will do it, the class that I represent will do our part, no matter if 
it does injure us. We have been acting barbarously and must redeem 
ourselves. We must set ourselves right. We will meet you more 
than half way." 

No. 3 got up and began to walk to and fro before the 
camp fire, with his hands behind him, and presently began, in meas- 



YOUNG MEN. 49 

ured tones, to say — "There is a way, a practical way, a definite and 
commendable way because it's a fair way; it's a way that will not 
injure the rich and yet be just to the poor. A business way, hence 
so far-reaching that it will reach every man, woman and child in 
America; a way of such gigantic magnitude that it will command 
not only the attention but the respect of all, and a way that will sus- 
tain the rich in their luxury and set the now poor up by their side." 
(At this No. 2 got tO' his feet, so. as to better listen). "I can- 
not tell you all that is in my mind and heart tonight, but in a word, 
it's to substitute combination for competition. 

In a republic like ours, the people are everything. If the people 
want to combine, they can; and of course what the people say in 
a people's government, is legal, and who should know better what 
the people want than the people themselves. But we must spread 
our blankets for the night. I for one, however, am resolved to do 
my full part to bring about a People's Business Combine." 

No. I sprang to his feet and said, "Give me your hand" — 
and both, turning to No. 2, grasped his extended hand, and 
the fires of the forefathers were rekindled in the hearts of their 
sons — theirs for civil liberty, which they purchased by their blood 
and which we still have and will forever hold; which was then a new 
and untried form of government. Our Declaration is for the indus- 
trial equality of the people now living together under that govern- 
ment then established." 

Breakfast being over, a ramble in the forest brought sufficient 
returns for another day; and our friends, after another supper, sat 
as on the eventful night before, and in plain view of the motto that 
had proven such an inspiration to each of them. All were anxious to 
follow out more minutely the practical details of a People's Comhine. 
The idea seemed entirely practical to all, but the Modus Operandi 
was not so clear. 

"Well, the last shall be first and the first last," cheerily said 
No'. I. With this well-pointed invitation. No. 3 said, 
"I would be very much to bjame if I were not better prepared, on 
account of my superior environments, as you thus intimate, than 
cither of you, to let light in upon this vital matter. This is not 
egotism, it is facts, and as we have agreed today to deal in facts, 
this matter, a People's Combine, is not only one of them but the 
leading one. 

As I have explained to you before, I have never either been 
punished by poverty or overloaded with wealth, but have always 
been as I am now, free to work or play and so both are alike easy. 
This I believe to be the birthright of every American citizen of sound 
mind. To study under these favorable auspices was a pleasure. The 
languages that I was prepared to bring to my relief in reading that 
motto also enabled me to look deeply into ancient history, even 
to the bottom facts and inspirations that underlie all the leading 
forms of government, in monarchies, that is, where the power orig- 
inates in asking or queen. That form of government is not prepara- 
tory or conducive in its character to the spirit of an industrial organ- 
ization or com,bine of all the people; but in a republic, where the 
power originates at the other extreme, that is, with the people, an 
industrial combine flows from such a form of government as water 
from its fountain head. Because the people are the governing 
power, our form of political government is adapted to it without any 
modification, and ready for it without any delay. We have been wont 
to call our government a new form. It was not new even to our 
forefathers, but to carry it into active living operation was compara- 
tively new; so a business combine is not new now, in some of its 



50 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

forms, but has grown remarkably fast under our representative 
method of government, showing itself competent to manage multi- 
plied millions of capital as easily and skillfully as hundreds or thou- 
sands were formerly, with an increasing ratio of profit in about the 
proportion to the magnitude of the capital invested. So now that an 
emergency is upon us, mien's hearts failing them in the sickening 
struggle waged so relentlessly by both labor and capital, eclipsing 
every other interest, and the success ol capital on nearly every 
battle field making men crazy tor capital, much as they would be for 
a claim in a bonanza mine, tumbling over one another to get rich, 
riding down and crushing to earth the finer sensibilities of humanity, 
as well as morality and religion, others, thoughtful men, with 
uplifted hands, ask in dismay, "What shall we do?" — when up out of 
the darkness steps our well-trained athlete. Combine, and says, 
"Here am I, send me. True, I was educated for the ring, but I can 
settle a fight as well as make one, and would much prefer to do it. 
If you don't believe it, just try me; I have proven a success to a few 
of the people, I am conscious of my power when exerted for all the 
people." The week's vacation was not half through until the men 
were back in the midst of active life, but filled with a new purpose, 
to uplift the people, and cheer them with the good news that in the 
march of progress we had arrived at a combine of all the people, 
each selfish interest sinking in the interest of one for the other, as 
being the acme of self-interest. 

Please observe that placing capital and labor under one manage- 
ment as is proposed the combine does not rob us of what good we 
have obtained, but rather takes the good we have to get more and 
greater good. It takes the form of government we have and uses it; 
it takes the central fact (self-interest) of civilization and appropri- 
ates it as a new business center; it takes the lesson the existing 
combines are teaching and applies it in its broadest application, so 
as to embrace all the people as beneficiaries; it takes the progress 
that we have made in material wealth and puts it where it can con- 
tinue to progress without danger to itself (in its top-heavy state) 
or the firm or individual who would now take it all if they can get it. 
and put wealth where it can and will lift up all the people. It takes 
industry as a gift of God, and causes it to be the specie basis, the 
medium of exchange, the popular entertainment, the one thing indis- 
pensable, the coin of the realm, making labor as popular as it is 
necessary; for when all work, the work will be so light that it will 
not be a burden to any. Men and women like to work for the exer- 
cise of it, but its being considered by some as menial gives it its 
repulsive aspect, — remove the menial odium and industry will be as 
welcome, as agreeable and natural as sleep. 

The combine idea is not only true as a business rule of action 
but it is fundamental. As a word is defined as being the sign of an 
idea, so the combine includes both the word and the idea. Addition, 
subtraction, multiplication and division are fundamental. The com- 
bine includes these and all that may be worked out by them in the 
fields of industry; so we find that the ordinary combine serves us 
an excellent purpose as an example of the principle involved; but 
"The People's Combine" not only exemplifies a principle, but goes 
on and appropriates the principle also, and sets it to work. So that 
our young men, women, thinkers, all have a vast field of thought 
opened up before them, heretofore unexplored, because of their not 
being suitably backed with men and their labor, as well as their very 
own (our very own) capital, all working in constant and harmonious 
action, to hold up and sustain any great adventures of_ mind and 
heart. So far, then, as a home for all and assured work in the sup- 



YOUNG MEN 51 

port of that home being the end of a God-given ambition, it is but 
the beginning, for never before has anyone, from the lofty scientist 
down to "the man with an idea above an oyster" felt that he waig 
safe in venturing into or planning for active life on account of the 
treachery and uncertainty of competitive business, solely because 
society has never had a definite plan and this for the very good 
reason it could not have and remain under the jurisdiction of compe- 
tition. Competition is business chaos hence no definite plan is pos- 
sible. Society is weary and tired of it and the combine age is even 
now on, and we cannot prevent if we would. Definite planning for 
the good of society will under the combine be for the first time pos- 
sible and practicable as a financial material business, from its 
inherent nature it will have authority and with economic authority 
society takes on its right relation to each individual composing it, 
and is enabled to definitely plan for each just as righteously and as 
properly as parents do and are expected to do, yea, are required to 
do for their children and for like legal and economic reasons. The 
industrial combine is the birth of a new era and solves the problem 
of capital and labor in a way unexpected, but as we behold its invin- 
cible progress we are forced to believe it's God's way, and if it be of 
God we may well give attention and get into line. 

Young men I appeal to your patriotism. You can see that if 
competition as the old medieval method of business, suitable to, and 
practiced by monarchy where might was ungallantly said to be right, 
and where personal liberty was a cowardly construed tp mean to 
take any unfair advantage in business that you would disdain to do 
in the ring, to take the lion's share. Aye, to take all wealth, and 
viciously trample a weaker or less comipetent brother down — down 
to serve for wages, and wages down to the border of if not to actual 
starvation. And for what? For power. To be a king. To be a 
monarch? Calmly, sir, does not a republic demand a better senti- 
ment? That I say not a better character, a consistency with itself, 
a civilization that is Christian. 

It was said in that elderly day "to be a Roman was greater than 
to be a king." To be a citizen of this republic carries with it as lofty 
a sentiment. How dare we do so mean a thing? We being politi- 
cally equal honor demands industrial equality, but if not the family 
does, but if not society the larger family does, but if not civilization 
does, but if not Christian civilization d'oes, but if not self-interest 
does. And be you Christian or infidel you can no more get away 
from your self-interest than from your shadow. And it demands 
that to expect fair treatment that you must yourself be fair. But 
I need not to condemn the monarchial idea which is the acme of 
selfish bigotry only to say dispassionately that it is not suited in any 
of its leadings to a republic, and I cannot commend to the loyal 
blood of young American manhood the industrial combine more 
highly than to say that it is the only method of conducting business 
to harmonize with a republican form of government. Competing 
corporations are a menace to our political liberty and restraint of 
co-operations is clearly an invasion of industrial liberty. Are we 
then between the devil and the deep sea? Not at all. Simply extend 
the good offices of the corporation to all the people alike, then pol- 
itical liberty can have nothing to fear from it. We must here and 
now begin with patriotic zeal to separate industry and politics — 
much as our fathers did church and politics. They acted wisely then 
and we have now, if never before, got to a point in our progress 
where industry requires a management from some source and if we 
think of it rightly politics was never designed to manage industry. 
When our nation was yet young it tacitly said to industry, "Here, 



52 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

I grant you letters of incorporation and industry stepped out as 
definitely to act for itself as a young man at twenty-one, and Cong- 
ress had no more control over a corporation acting legally than a 
father over a son of age — now we the people are in corporate capa- 
city can have but one interest and so both labor and capital natur- 
ally come under one man agent. Labor produces all the necessities 
of life and there really is but a shadow of difference in taking away 
life and taking away a necessity of that life so clearly placing labor 
and its capital under one management precludes strikes and lock- 
outs, for a man will not strike himself or lock himself out of a job. 




Letter to Prohibitionists. 

My experience with drinking men from a physician's standpoint 
and in religious work in the missions and- churches, gives me very 
definite and pronounced conviction on the temperance question. My 
sympathy for the drinker does not array itself against the maker and 
seller of the liquid poison, but rather includes him. I sympathize 
-with him as a creature of remorseless circumstances, getting drunk 
is bad enough, selling liquor is bad enough, but there is a deeper 
wrong that must be righted. It is easy to tell the drunkard not to 
touch it and trust in God, it is easy to say to the seller, quit it, better 
starve than make money in that way. The theory of trusting in God 
is all right but have you not felt guilty of acting out a great farce in 
holding the cup out to a man and at the same time telling him not to 
drink. That is practically what we prohibitionists are doing. Men and 
women are turning away from us in sorrow for where they had a right 
to expect a fish we have offered them a serpent. We must go deeper 
than we have gone. Our sermons and lectures and pleadings and per- 
suasiveness are all right but we blush when we remember that our 
American nation of which we are a part,is proudly carrying blood 
money. No wonder this miowster evil like Banquo's ghost, 
will not go down. No tactics, military, civil, moral or 
religious, but have been tried and found wanting; for well 
info'rmied temperance people themselves tell us that the bus- 
iness of buying and selling intoxicating liquors is on the 
increase This to be sure is only the business view of it, but that only 
comes within the scope of this book. Let us be Christians and do ,. 
-the first thing first, i. e., be reconciled! to ouir brethren. Matt. 
5-24. We have said and intimated frequently elsewhere that business 
interest is the only interest that is universal in its application— as a 
people we must set ourselves right and to do so it's to business inter- 
est that we must look for the solution of this business p-roblem. If 
we all, with unprejudiced minds, will look, we will see that the liquor 
people put more business concentration into their busin-ess than the 
temperance people do into their methods of opposition to it, I speak 
of this fact to show that any business succeeds in proportion to the 
concentration put into it— so we must conclude that the liquor traf- 
fic will go on succeeding and gaining indefinitely, or until it is met 
-with a superior expression of business concentration. I speak of this 
only as a business fact. Now to take human nature as it is, and to 
quit our dreaming of it as we think it ought to be, let us notice a few 
pertinent facts. Busine.ss interest does make friends out of foes. It 
may, it will require a business revolution to enlist liquor men as allies 
in the cause of temperance, yet we must h^ve them as allies or fail. 
We must concentrate on one thing and give everybody a fair chance 
.at it if we can. If it can be made to be to the business interest of hquor 
men to adopt a food and drink that will make them stronger in mind 
and muscle, as well as to give them a more profitable business invest- 
ment, they will accept the most profitable and so forsake the less 
profitable, willingly, and for the most part gladly; for but very few 
-are in it because they love the liquor business — rather for the profit 
-.there is in the business. We do not know whether most drunkards 



54 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

drink because of discouragement or whether drinking caused the dis- 
couragement, but if there is a way, a practical way, though it be 
entirely a business way, for society to proceed to produce sound, 
sober and at the same time an economical way. We must be rational 
and put ourselves in that way. 

Mr. Lincoln said, "All capital is the product of labor and could 
not exist without labor; now as a principle, this is fundamental." "A 
republic, as ours," he says, "is a government of the people, for the 
people, and by the pegple," — so that everything that labor can pro- 
duce belongs to the people that produce it, — that is a primary fact. 
Now, whose business is it to distribute these prodlictions, make 
exchanges, and adjust all proper relations of men and their labor, 
ways and means, etc., surely the people's. If so, where does compe- 
tition in industry come in rationally? Nowhere, for there can be no 
possible conflict of industrial interest, and so the actual business of 
society begins right here, and on the basis that justice be done to 
each, and is the concern of all. This is the best definition of an 
industrial combine and is foreshadowed in ai small way by the exist- 
ing combine or trusts all about us now in active operation, as if they 
were intent on getting back to the primary or fundamental idea. 
Liquor men will tell you that they admire Christ as a man, and no 
man ever taught a better business method than he. He labored as 
a carpenter at productive employment at Nazareth and, like Lincoln, 
was a man of the people, having the people's business interest at 
heart. Christ taught combination of business interests in many places 
and in many ways, among which he lays down this basic principle 
of business action, exactly harmonized within its practical applica- 
tion, by the spirit of com.bines of railroads, factories, etc., which 
they tO' be sure can apply to the few only included in them:. "What- 
soever ye would that men should do unto you, d'o ye even so unto 
them, for this is the law." He was talking tO' men concerning their 
industrial business conduct with men, literally and practically. Does 
aniyone suppose that he didn't know or that he was trifling with men, 
or that he was deceiving them, or that he was setting up a standard 
of business conduct so high that men, as men, could not attain to it^ 
or that he gave it for a few, who needed it the least of any class, that 
is, the most intelligent? No, no. it's rather like the go'spel placed 
within the reach of the tiniest of the human race, to enable him to 
develop to the best of his small ability, as well as within xeach of the 
very greatest of mental and physical and financial acumen or endow- 
ment. This standard of business I insist that you should appropri- 
ate, digest and assimilate, realizing that it is the best method of busi- 
ness for you whether saint or sinner. The most rational, if there 
were no eternity, nothing beyond this life; it's not only the best, but 
the only rules of industry that harmonizes with our own sense, of 
common justice and I repeat, applicable alike for the most lowly 
specimen of humanity tO' the best developed gentleman or lady of 
America. Christ knew It; Lincoln knew it, and further indifference 
on your part or a shame-faced admission on your part, that you will 
not transact business that is best for you, becavise forsooth, it also 
helps another. The liquor men, who make no pretension that their 
business or business methods help any but their own families are con- 
sistency personified, when compared with the business methods of 
competition generally. Now, as a free agent to do good as well as to 
do evil, yet of the two preferring to do good do you wonder, when 
men hear you advocating moral and religious reform, that they say 
in words or in thought, "Physicians, heal thyself; be consistent 
yourself, in your business conduct, before you preach temperance 
reform to me." 



PEOHIBITIONISTS. 55 

The saloon business, which in itself is the most consistent exam- 
ple of the entire competitive system of business; for it does not pre- 
tend to be holy, just or good, while the so-called! legitimate branches 
competitive business dio. I beg of you to substitute the combine with 
its "As ye would" business methods, for the shamefully inconsistent 
competition and thus be enabled to unravel the puzzle. We are strain- 
ing at a gnat (the saloon) and swallowing a camel (business competi- 
tion). We are straining at efifects, and petting and feeding and loving 
the cause. We are also on the other hand making a great ado about a 
few men, (trusts, combines, monopolies, etc.), who have business 
sense enough to combine in their own interest and swallowing the 
repulsive, nauseous, competitive system that makes honest men 
rogues and well disposed men sick at heart, yet who seemingly en- 
dure it as a kind of dispensation of providence, that it would be seem- 
in,gly wrong in them to try to evade. Shame on us, for persisting 
in doing evil, that good may come, and calling Baal God and looking 
no further. We associate self-interest with selfishness, and then go 
on and define selfishness as "the essence of human depravity," and 
say that combines and trusts and corporations are self-interest and 
strut around and plume ourselves as being too wise and too good to 
ever have anything to do with a combine — whereas the facts are, we 
can no more get away from our self-interest than we can from, our 
shadow, and our creator never intended that we should. The State 
lias to build asylums for people who do not have sufficient self-inter- 
est. "Self preservation is the first law of nature." "Act out your 
real self-interest," answers the question of "How can I best obey 
this law?" and the answer comes back as an echo from the hills of 
God "obey this law." Combine and thus do the best you can to help 
others, that they may be disposed to, and better able, to help you; 
that is industrial or business combination — so please do not misun- 
derstand me. I love the good, the true, and the beautiful too well 
to any longer deny myself of it, lest my fellow should also have his 
share of it and' be helped by it; but rather would I help him, combine 
with him, to get it, that I might have it in its fullniess for myself. 
This is not selfish, because God taught it and is teaching it today to 
all who hare ears to hear. What effect will the business or indus- 
trial combines have upon drunkards? Eliminate the liquor business 
and that by the consent and co-operation of the liquor men. 

Using money in its legitimate channel only, as a medium of 
exchange, our accummulation will naturally be in stock, that being 
the most productive and best property. Again, as all products 
rightfully belong to the producer, and when produced the production 
must be distributed to the sole advantage and financial benefit of the 
producer all m'ust not only produce, but be the recipients of the bene- 
fits of all articles produced. This necessitates a system, of business 
which must be conducted in the sole interest of the producer; so we 
have a combination of interest and! we call it a combine. 
The combine sets the individual where he can be the most 
useful to it ( every man in his niche) that is also where he 
can be the most useful to himself — some farmers, some carpenters, 
some lawyers and some doctors. Now, if business interest of one 
is, as it naturally is and will be, the business interest of all, I ask, 
"To whose business interest is it to make drunkards out of sober 
men?" or to taint the tastes of a future generation by an inherited 
taste for liquor, that makes a business man of less value to the com- 
bine, if not an absolute burden to it. The business interest of the 
combine is found in the best specimen of manhood that breeding and 
physical culture can produce. So it naturally becomes the studied 
interest of the Board of Health of the combine to supply such food, 



56 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

drink, clothing, sanitation, etc., as is best calculated to nourish and 
conserve its business interest. There may be some with perverted 
tastes, inherited from the fathers and mothers of intemperate habits. 
They will be pitied and in no case despised, but like the cripple in a 
family, cared for the more tenderly. But the combine will make 
it its business to have the greatest possible proportion of the people 
able to produce, and willingly producing as much or more than they 
consume; and if it is found, and we think it will be, that rotten apples 
or potatoes, grapes, barley or rye, wheat ot corn, or the fermented 
juices of these things, are unhealthy or cause workmen^to be less able 
or less disposed to do their part of the combines work, or if you 
please, to transmit phlysical vitality to their children, then it logi- 
cally becomes the boisiness interest of the cornbine to deny them 
the use of these things, as it is positively done legally 
now, any supplying a better regimen, a better bill of fare, thus 
steadily approaching the highest state of physical health. Hygiene, 
under the existing competition, is practically impossible, any doctor 
will tell you so; hygiene, Under the proposed combination, will be the 
rule; and as the physical health of the combine will become its real 
business interests, intemperance in eating and drinking will be the 
business of its board of health to eliminate, whose law then, as now, 
will be the highest and most inexo'rable law of the land. Again, the 
planing of the distribution of productions of farm or factory, is busi- 
ness; while the production itself is labor. So the quarrel between 
labor and capital is on neither the capital invested nor the labor 
which produced it, but on the business relations or method of distri- 
bution — and that only, as labor is all right and capital is all right. 
How, then, can we transact the simpLe business, so there can be no 
chance for quarreling? A mother is justly entitled to food and proper 
clothing equally with her husband; although her duties are unproduct- 
ive household duties. Society, for good and sufficient reasons, has as- 
signed it to her, and she as willingly accepts it as does the husband his 
position as bread-winner. Labor produces the necessities and luxuries 
of life, and as no one man can possibly produce everything his family 
needs, a business is immediatly established to take proper charge of 
what is produced, and business, ex-officio, calls to its aid a necessary 
amount of labor — what for? To aid the original or first labor in the 
proper distribution of its own productions. So business does not 
distribute, but labor actually and in a most proper sense does it all, 
and business simply directs; yet as a miatter of fact the director, the 
business man, of right and justice, is fed and clothed and is entitled 
to these on the same basis as the motTier of the household is, and 
equally so whether he labors or not. Now, it is as absurd for the 
husband to pay the mother wages, as it would be for the mother to 
pay the husband wages; is it not? both are alike entitled to equal 
dividends produced on farm or factory. Another distributes, another 
directs it all, each does his part and is entitled to equal dividends, 
and if wages were absurd in the instance of husband and wife, it is 
equally absurd for society, the larger family, in any and all of its 
departments. Let me ask, if wages are pertinent at all, who should 
pay the wages, should the original workman pay the business man, 
or the business man pay the original workman? — which? They are 
as clearly one in interest as the husband and wife and the wage idea 
is vague and does not apply in either case. So we see that the quarrel 
is really caused by wages and is concerning wages. Now wage 
slavery need not, ought not, and cannot exist in the light of advanc- 
ing civilization, any more than negro slavery, as in this expanding 
light, all men msust see that it is tO' their own financial and business 
interest to combine, even if they do benefit somebody else 



PROHIBITIONISTS. 57 

by it , and combines implies dividends and wages exit. Why, 
sir or madami, it's no crime to do another good, even 
if competition hais taught us to fight and cheat from baby- 
hood. We make a great hue and cry about saloon men teaching 
children to drink, that they must find a market for more liquor, 
l>id enough, I admit, but bless you, that good com- 
petitive financing, and in perfect harmony and accord with its meth- 
ods everywhere, and quite as kindhearted and humane as the soul of 
business competition is cipable of being. Again, wages humiliate 
a man in spite of himself and it's no use to deny it; no man is quite 
the man as a wage worker, that he would feel himself to^ be if he lived 
from his dividen(Js or honest share, and was conscious of working 
for himself. This humiliation, liquor dealers as well as merchants and 
employers generally, make it their business to take advantage of, for 
their own profit under competition. Self-respect is an obstacle to 
the liquor traffic in every way. 

The spirit of fairness prompted even the slaves to work for their 
master's, quite as much as the lash; yet, any slave would have felt 
himself more a man if he had been free. So a man humiliated by 
working for wages, is an easier prey to appetite, feeling that he is 
already down, a wage slave. In African slavery the master said, 
"Your time is mine, but of course it is to my interest to keep you 
well, and up to your best, physically, as long as I can, for I will have 
to take care of you when you can't work, as any owner would an old 
horse." Wage slavery, the employer practically says, "Your time is 
mine, just the same as the African slave, but you must keep yourself 
well, so as to render me the very best service, or I will discharge 
you, to tramp or starve for ought I care; as for me, I muist success- 
fully compete with others in business, or fail" and we see clearly 
that the employer is not to blame, and I am not blaming him, but let 
me ask you, so that you may study it all out before you answer, 
"Which of the two systems of slavery is the best, for the slave?" 
Observe that, in the first, the slave in real life worked himself up to 
be what he thought a life beyond required him to become, but in the 
second, the wage slave too frequently drifts downward on a current 
of indifference concerning any life beyond and becomes a drunk and 
too frequently his whole wage go to the liquor trafific, and both he 
and his offspring are a financial burden, either directly or indirectly, 
to society, but heartless competition goes right on, caring for none 
of these things. A combine of business interest must come to the 
drunkard's rescue. Financial self-interest is, from necessity, the 
strongest sentiment, in a popular government like ours, where the 
power originates with the people. That is self-government. Why 
we have not seen and acted on this fact long ago, is a conundrum. 
But line it up now, it's not yet too late, and all moral sentiment will 
be with it rather than against it. Civil liberty originated in self-inter- 
est, the war of the Revolution was fought and won by self-interest, 
no great attainment of individual or national life was ever reached, 
but by self-interest. We can't get away from ourselves, no more can 
we from our own interest and this same self-interest demands that 
we combine, unite, and quit this selfish competition, but unite for the 
common individual interest of all. This will settle the temperance 
question, and on a basis that is at once rational, fair and final, thus 
unloading the heavy burden, that the clergy, etc., have been trying 
to carry all alone on to the strong and efficient shoulders of The 
People's Business Combine. 

Our earnest plea is for the home and drunkeness strikes first 
and most fatally at the home and the home must be guarded by the 
loyal heart of the nation or our common country will soon fall in 



58 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

ruins about us — our safety is in guaranteeing a home to every Am«iri- 
can citizen but the combine needs no whisky. 

I have before me a picture that talks. A mother gorgeously 
appareled sitting by a little bed, an empty glass and teaspoon in her 
hand, by her side kneels a beautiful boy with long curls — ^as if saying 
"Now I lay me down to sleep." The mother more thoughtful than he 
seems to linger on the Inst line as if asking herself "What will the 
all Father do with my soul when He does take it," my eyes close in 
pity and in the darkness I read in letters of lightning, "Am I my 
brother's keeper." I am startled by it and open my eyes but on an- 
other picture she is now fondlly "tuckling him in" as he so much loves 
to have her do, he is looking at her as if asking where is papa, a smile 
lights up her face and her lips are parted as if speaking in answer. 
"Papa is all right, he is receiving the Congressional partners tonight, 
Congress does not dare to pass a law without asking your papa; he as 
president of the Brewers' Association is the head of the political 
concern also, just the same as the city council could not pass 
an ordinance without consulting my interest as president of the 
Sellers' Association, the council is in session now and they always 
send a delegation after each meeting to tell me what they have passed 
and tO' make out a program: for the next meeting. Now Freddy, you 
have taken your toddy and said your prayers now put your trust in 
God and go to sleep, good night." She is a little mixed you say, yes, 
whisky, politics, mother love, feair of the future, retribution, anything 
and everything but industry takes a hand in making laws for indlustry. 
Answer me what business has politics to meddle in industrial matters? 
What does industry need of whisky? Why make it? Now as to the 
liquor business itself it is unlike any other business, it cannot be 
classed as an industry, it is a medley of luxury and sin. Luxury is all 
right in its place, but sin has no place. Its trangression of law if 
it were sin alone we could hand it over to the clergy and also satisfy 
common law by punishment as we would murder, theft, etc., but it 
seems hardly fair (it's born in us to be fair after all) to put goods 
into a fellow's pocket, or on his person or in his person, if you please, 
and then make up a case in court against him on this kind of a plea; 
yet, drunkenness is a crime, and why do we look upon it as pre- 
ferred stock in a companv. I answer, "Largely because we make 
money out of it; we sell the right to get drunk and to make drunks, 
as an indulgence for so much money in hand paid; the fact that it's 
blood m'oney or hush money does not deter us so anxious are we for 
money that we would sell doves in the temple of God for money." 
I am not blaming anybody for doing it, for "every fellow for himself" 
and it's very frequently "do it ot starve," and the end (money) jus- 
tifies the means. Oh! why don't we plan just a little and give these 
liquor dealers something better and more profitable to do. I said 
the liquor business; is a luxury or amusement as well as a money 
making business in this it is peculiar to itself and competition. So 
if it were sin alone or amusement alone, it would be manageable by 
recognized methods suitable to either one, but including both, they 
stand out and must be dealt with apart and there is absolutely no way 
to successfuly manage chem but to give them into the powerful and 
efificient control of a business combine competent to control both the 
appetite and arrange for a better way to make money than to make 
and sell whisky for money. 

Some of you are ready to say, "I know we have failed and are 
failing in our opposition to the saloon, but your tackling competi- 
tion as a business method, was never undertaken before, aye we 
must remove the cause and the efifect will cease." I have avoided 
metaphysics in all these letters and do not wish to get into its domain 



PROHIBITIONISTS. ° 59 

here, and will leave it to the reader to study out if he chooses; but 
the fact is that the so-called competitive method of business is really 
the absence of any method, i. e., not a method at all, a kind of con- 
tinuation of the child's impulse or way, on up into the adult age. A 
combine, on the other hand, is doing business by a weW defined 
method. Competition is chaos and chaotic, combination is a definite 
proposition or rule of action, so we do not need to try to tackle com- 
petition, there is nothing to tackle; but combine in and adopt a metho- 
dical way and competition will go, as darkness goes when the light 
comes in. So you see, that self-government, a definite form of polit- 
ical government, really needs the industrial combine, a definite indus- 
trial method of business procedure, when I said that the liquor traffic 
is a medley of sin and luxury I defined competition, exactly for It 
is a medley of sin and luxury also; and if a purely business combine 
becomes light in the darkness, in the one case, it will in the other, 
and if competition the cause will go on forever if we do not combine, 
so the liquor traffic the effect will go on forever if we do not com- 
bine. This is no metaphor or figure of speech, but a truth, a fact. 
Again, family life cannot exist without fraternal authority no author- 
ity no family life; so competition being nothing cannot have author- 
ity in the very nature of things, and society needs, society must have 
authority or there can be no society life. So under self-government 
how are you going to control saloon-business, you do not 
because you cannot. And further, no authority but family authority 
is applicable to our American society, as our society is the larger 
family; hence society must have the Industrial Combine in order to 
continue the family method of authority, from the point where the 
family authority naturally ends on up to the very end of life — so we 
argue that prohibition must continue to fail because it cannot have 
the backing or any business authority while competition prevails, so 
we must have a business authority; we must have a business head' — 
a combine, if you please — before we can have any authority over the 
liquor traffic. Moral suasion is mere child's play in the premises. So- 
ciety must have authority given to it synonymous in character to 
family authority, identical in spirit with the authority of existing 
combines, which are governed in the self-interest of stockholders. 
If there were no other reason for the formation of the Industrial 
Combine, it would be "worth while" to form it, in order to put soci- 
ety in a position to control drunkenness and yet be perfectly fair 
with the liquor dealer, and gaining, having not only his friendly con- 
sent but his hearty co-operation. Do you say for any alleged reason 
it cannot be done? Then you tacitly say railroads can't combine — 
if one has the other can, and for practically the same reasons and in 
practically the same way. This practical solution of the liquor busi- 
ness is almost inexhaustible in its reasonable resources, but I cannot 
follow it any further here. I can only hope that I have enabled you 
that are engaged in it to see this traffic as a real calamity in its effects, 
and also you who are fighting it to see that, to be fair, you must plan 
to give these men better employment and not to turn them our empty- 
handed; it is unfair not to say unchristian — ^they, too, are our 
brothers. So I feel that I have now put you on a path to prohibition 
that will prohibit. Our America "land of the noble free" (now itself 
getting half the proceeds of the liquor business) must go out of the 
business of making drunks out of sober men (who are irresponsibie 
children of a larger growth) and by taking charge of the stock of 
drunks now on hand, make them into sober men. 

I stand amazed at the childish attitude of full-grown men and 
women — aye, my blood boils with indignation at the criminality of 
gocxi people holding out the cup of poison to the helpless child of 



60 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

any age, and virtually, sayjng, "Here it is, take it, better not take it, 
but here it is, drink plenty of it o n every corner,everywhere, and we, 
the people, are making more; don't drink it, but if you do your 
mother can feed it to you with sugar and mint; don't drink it, if you 
do ruin will be sure to follow; if you did not drink it, we good 
people would not have it made," and you are and will be the only (?) 
one to blame — what irony! It is an axiom that a drunkard won't 
drink if he can't get it, and if he is put where he can't get it, or it is 
not manufactured, either will stop drunkenness, and, nothing else 
will; so which shall we do, put about half of our people in the peni- 
tentiary, so that they may get "cold sober," or quit making the poi- 
son. Listen!. It takes all the points mentioned in the People's 
Industrial Combine to grapple with this disease, this monster evil; 
nothing else will and nothing more is required. I have mentioned 
it before, but I am in earnest in this matter that I add line upon 
line, and will mention again that the law, the law of substitution, 
must be obeyed. The great attractive force of Christian civilization 
like salvation, is that it gives a better life. Good people have thought 
of the cofifee saloon, home saloon, temperance drinks, etc., little 
thinking that it was not the drinks so much as .t is the money, the 
wealth to be gained to ■'he liquor traffic, that has and does make it 
invincible against all that has heretofore been tried; and it laughs at 
the simplicity of the individual for undertaking to match a corpora- 
tion. Wealth being the active cause for the existerce of the saloon, 
so the substitute must be a substitute of wealth, not of drinks, mind 
you, but of wealth. The liquor men are not so attached to their 
methods of gaining wealth, but that they will accept a better 
method of industrial procedure, a method that will not debase. As 
a temperance man, I deny for them that they take delight in making 
brutes out of sober men. They deplore it and would not do it but 
for the money there is in it. Once offer them a more profitable 
method and they will accept it. It is profits and not liquoir; it is a 
home, food, clothing for self and family that they want, and not the 
saloon or the brewery. They are human and want just what we all 
want, so why not give it to them that we may have it for ourselves. 
The way of a people's business combine is not only a practical way, 
but it is the only way. I challenge any man, Christian or infidel, to 
find another. We have also reached the point where business is 
competent to take up and pigeon-hole the liquor problem and satis- 
factory to saloon men as well as to teetotalers. It is purely a busi- 
ness proposition, but morals and Christianity will rejoice at the 
results. 




What Effect Will Industrial Equality Have 
Upon Banks and Banking. 

Banking is the highest, most perfect, most efficient method of 
business procedure, has been and is and will be the indicator, 
showing the respective rank of civilizations. Civil liberty and indus- 
trial liberty are fast friends, but separate and distinct personalities 
each may and does sustain the other. Banking, as taught in the 
schools, is a fascination, both to the teacher and the taught; I would 
delight to follow out and say pleasant things about it, but can only 
briefly refer to a few of its attractive features. It is ideal in its busi- 
ness methods, hence just adapted to combines, for they are business 
perfections, and if so, will as surely be appropriated and used by a 
combination of the combines, when absorbed by all the people intO' 
one industrial combine, so there may be no business confusion ex- 
pected either in the transient stage or after the industrial combine 
is inaugurated. It will be conducted on the most learned business 
principles, and banks, in the very nature of things, will forever be 
the medium through which all the business relations of the larger 
family will be conducted. I want to rivet your attention to the 
"larger family" because the family, with but few exceptions, and 
there should be no exceptions, is moved by motives of self-interest. 
This same motive will be adopted by the larger family, the Indus- 
trial Combine, or Society, as it is just now being done by railroad 
combines, coal combines, oil combines, etc., and in the interest of 
their stockholders, "their little families," do you see? So we very 
appropriately call self-interest in business the "combine idea," but 
we see that it is only the family idea carried on up into the larger fam- 
ily, the combine; we can see that during the family existence, that is, 
until the children are of age, and while they are subject to paternal 
authority, that self-interest is the law of family life, and that sel- 
fishness is transgression of that family law, and is punishable and 
should be and usually ;s punished. There comes a time, however, 
when family jurisdiction ends and the father or mother can no 
longer punish; but the same character of government, mind you, is 
relevant and of a right ought to continue, both for the good of the 
now-called citizen of twenty-one and also for the parents now 
called society, "the combines," if you please, for the fact that the 
child is now called a citizen, does not intimate but that he still 
needs both care and restraint, the two family prerogatives, and that 
as positively after he is twenty-one as he did before; and further- 
more, society, in the capacity of parent, must be actuated by an af- 
fection akin to, if not identical with, filial affection, and must be and 
of a right ought to be entitled to the esteem and consideration due 
to parents; so where does selfishness apply to the child over twenty- 
one less than to the child under twenty-one? You may say: Ah, 
that may be a very pretty theory, but it is Utopian and visionary, 
and we great thinkers (?) know better. Do you, indeed? Listen; 
because Belshazzar could not read the handwriting on the wall 



62 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

(Daniel, 15th chapter), he was not at liberty to say, and it would 
have been folly for him to have decreed that there was no writing 
there, so because you cannot read the significations of the combines, 
all around us — yea, on us — it is equally folly for you to ignore them 
and call the People's Industrial Combine Utopian and! visionary. 
When you think it all out, you will see that the combine idea is iden- 
tical with the family idea, therefore kind and helpful, and that both 
are actuated by self-interest, which they, by a force as irresistible as 
fate, are entitled to and will compel your respect, and ere long your 
admiration, as they are this very moment permeating every indus- 
trial and economic department of America. "God speed the day" 
when the People's Industrial Combine will be adopted. 

As I have intimated' '"banking is an exact science." Hence, it 
is admirably adapted to the exact and equal justice and methods of 
doing business, to the people's industrial procedures. If it is so 
needful now when only a tithe of the people can have any business 
relation with banks, what will it be when all the families have money 
to deposit and draw out as needed, for is not dividends included in 
the combined idea, and is not deposits included in the dividend idea, 
and does not deposits necessitate a bank and banking? 

The horrifying question which is making the people behave some- 
thing like the maniac (Mark, 5 chapter; read it), namely. What will 
we do with the combines anyhow? will show about as marked and 
desirable efTect when we ask the more sensible and pertinent ques- 
tion. What can the combine be made to do for us? So. don't lose 
your head, my brother; to be sure there is an industrial storm on, 
but you need your head and your heart, too, for you have a twin 
brother aboard and he an invalid, and you are expected to act for 
yourself and him. I say again, let your head and heart act now in 
unison. America is its men, remember — not its ships, its railroads, 
farms, factories, or business houses, but by these things we are en- 
abled to see the man behind them all, and so. as parents are known 
by their children, so is a nation abroad, the larger family, known by 
its citizens, and the bank sits proudly and appropriately at the top 
of the very summit, managing the business of industrial attainments, 
a proud representative, both at home and abroad. Now that it is 
so clear that society is really our larger family, a corresponding 
affection is needful and will spring up, a companion for each other, 
a planning for the entire family. 

The very helplessness of labor appeals to our family sympathv. 
Many of our people clearly do not know what to do; they are lost in 
a maze. There is no use for longer mincing matters or saying he or 
she is of age. True, but the greater the pity, for not only they, but 
their families mutely appeal to us; hard word's from hard hearts can 
never help them or save you. Society must take the place of parents 
of these incompetent multitudes, and guide the adult arie-ht. in^te?4 
of turning them out, saying they are of age, to be trodden down or, 
worse, for the wiser ones to learn to steal under the polished nom- 
deplume "competition." As we hope for industrial mercy, let us 
show mercy, and the view I would have you take, and the love I 
would have you show, is maternal, paternal and fraternal, showing a 
beckoning hand, a helping hand — the hand of the combine. 

I recognize that the last thing that a banker wishes to admit is 
that there is any emergency in his affairs and I sympathize with him 
and seek to adjust the labor problem (for it is peculiarly a labor 
problem, a war between salaried men and wage men), by avoiding 
the new and untried and utilizing the already existing provisions for 
conducting large business undertakings, the corporation. I recog- 



BANKS AND BANKING. 63 

nize also to accomplish anything so great as the settling of this great 
labor problem- there must be a united and strong effort of strong 
men, men of financial acumen, for it is largely a financial undertak- 
ing. I recognize also that stability and soundness are the first requi- 
sites for any successful financial proposition. Novelty is the last, 
CoirpoTation is the old, the tried way. With it we can adjust this 
labor problem. It does not take virtue, morals, goodness to be- 
come a stockholder. May there not be some tangible way to lift the 
homeless into a home and the unemployed into employment, and 
start humanity without coin on a high level, where it will be possible 
for them then, as it is for you now, to do unto others as they would 
have others do unto them, which you, as a banker, know that it is 
not possible for them to do now and unaided? Neither would it 
be for you if fortune should put you in their place. So, then, the com- 
mand comes to you especially, uniquely. Listen, now, and I think 
you will hear from across the Sea of Galilee the Master say, "What- 
soever ye would that men should do unto you do ye even so unto 
themi." There is no higher expression of refinement, of culture, than 
this. 

So you see it is not proposed to change the existing order of 
business, hut only the motive behind business, .adopting the motive of 
the combine, which is one of real self-interest to all its stockholders, 
with a home to live in and money to live on. You are better com- 
petent than I to follow out all the advantages and induceinents that 
must necessarily follow when it becomes somebody's business (our 
business) to see to it that every man, woman and child is at their 
best, physically, mentally, and financially, able to do their fair share 
of work. A mediical Board of Health intent only on keeping people 
well can reasonably prevent over-eating or over-drinking or the far- 
ther use of any unhealthy drugs. Why not? We all belong alike to 
the combine and have become parties in interest. 

I apprehend we will use the sam^e money, buy just what we 
want to eat and wear, no more no less (and being assured by the 
Board of Health that both food and drugs are free from poison), as 
we do now, and having the money to buy with, we need not go m 
debt. 

Any accumulations of the combine over and above paying the 
monthly dividends, from a mill to a million, will be put where it will 
do us individually the most good, namely into the combine, it offer- 
ing the greatest financial inducement; hence, it will be able to open 
up and develop productively. It is a way, a practical business way, 
to meet needful wants and control vicious desires, thus enabling the 
people, all the people, to attain and have real Hbeirty, the liberty of 
industry, akin to if not identical with the civil liberty of our fathers. 
We may have been a long time in getting to this industrial liberty, 
but, thanks to the existing combines for showing us definitely the 
way to it, we are home at last, and with provisions in plenty, and the 
best of it all is we are "all, all here." And as we look back over the 
rough, competitive way that we have come, the strangest_ thing of it 
all is, that we ever could have spent these weary years in but little 
else than in throwing our brother off of the home track. Blindly, 
but somehow believing that the only way to get home ourselves was 
to keep our brother from getting a home, so little knowing, so little 
realizing, that the best way, in fact the only business way, of gel;- 
ting a home for ourselves was to see to it, and as part of our busi- 
ness that our brother also has a home, too, and also that the only 
business way to make sure of our job is to see that every other one 
has a job; hence no one is left out to jump into our job or selfishly 



64 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

crowd us out. These beautiful facts might seem like a dream to us 
were it not for the wideawake railroad combines, oil combines, coal 
combines, etc., all exemplifying the reality of and convincing our 
senses, so that we are compelled to open our eyes to the light of 
day and see that the combine is as feasible and practical, as real and 
material, as a bank and banking, and definite as a time lock. 




What Effect Will Industrial Equality Have 
Upon the Saloon ? 

The fear of the mother-heart is of the saloon, so it is pertinent 
that this postscript note on how to get rid of the sa'.oon should 
follow my letter to young women. 

Nearly all reformers have tried to run liquor men out of busi- 
ness, resulting in arousing their animosity and resentment, bringing 
on a fight and a firmer setting of their teeth, as if to say, "We'll 
show you we are not going to be run out." And they back up their 
determination by taking a firmer grip. Diplomacy would have been 
better than fight, but self-interest is better than diplomacy. Self-in- 
terest is the soul of self-government, hence loyalty as well. To be 
sure, the saloon is a legitimate child of competition, and I some- 
limes think the brainiest one of the lot. It certainly has excellent 
health and is likely to live as long as its father. But go slow here, 
for you and I, as temperance people, have a money interest in the 
saloon, and don't you forget it, for in a very real sense the saloon is 
the agent of the government (that's you and I) in disposing of our 
wares. The saloon-keeper is not only our agent, but he is the brew- 
er's agent; so he must have a good moral character, or he could 
not become our agent of course, and he must have a good financial 
standing, or he could not beconiie the brewer's agent. So, if we 
look at it right, a man is not so much worse than his neighbor after 
all: and as we, the goverment, tax whisky, etc.. for about half of its 
selling price, so we, the government, own, while you are reading 
this, practically a half-interest in all the breweries. I may refer to 
the fact again, but to return to our saloon, ours because we have 
a big financial interest in their sales and general success, for do we 
not get another big sum of money from saloons as Ticense, in many 
instances as much as they do, so we have a half-interest here also. 
These are gratifying facts. I said we were interested in the saloon- 
man's financial success; yes, to be sure, for if he did not make 
money he could not pay his license, then, what would we do for 
money with which to run the city government? Again, as we have 
said, we would not have given the saloon-keeper a license if it had 
been shown that he was not of good moral character. As the busi- 
ness is really ours, and he being our agent, it is not politic, it is not 
honorable, for us to employ an agent to do a thing unless we can 
step in and take his place while he is at lunch. (Aside) Are you 
ready to do it? Ha! ha! There is no better way to get a fair view 
of a man than to put yourself in his place andi to see ourselves as 
others see us. You and I are behind the saloon bar — wince at it 
though you may (though many of uis under protest, I agree) — 
and will remain there until Gabriel blows his horn, if the competi- 
tive system is not supplanted by industrial combination. We may 
howl as long and loudly and as consistently as the fotir hundred 
prophets of Baal, and still the easy, merry mode of making money 
dn the liquor business will keep it alive and well. Nothing less than 



66 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

to giye saloon menra better business relation to enter upon will ever 
read the case, and as long as money is America's God, and the vice 
and license that money buys is put into the hands of the few, so that 
they can at will humiliate and enslave the many, just so long will 
saloons exist as a means of getting that money. This is not pessi- 
mism: this is fact. I am an optimist because I see that the busi- 
ness common sense of saloon men themseives, when brought to see 
the industrial possibilities of the Combine, will join in its adoption. 

The Combine is not a temperance, or a 'religious, or a social, or 
a fraternal, or a political, but purely a business organization, to di- 
rect labor and its production, its delicious fruits, and properly gather 
them in to be impartially distributed to be used by all the people. 
But I have to say that while we are living and that by the consent of 
all the people under the iniquitous competitive system, where men 
are measured by the dollar standard and where goodness of heart is 
willfully trampled under foot in the mad rush for more and yet moire 
and more dollars, that while we so live I can have few hard words ta 
say against saloon men. The saloon is only one means to an end, 
and it is the end where ruin runs riot. Wealth to buy power or in- 
fluence, rather than for men to merit preferment by innate goodness 
of heart, is id'olatry. 

The Combine will give these saloon boys and men something to 
do that they can make a better living and have a home to live in 
in the bargain, and they will quit the saloon business willingly. 
Many I say, if not most of them, are in the business under protest. 
Observe that the young men among them who enter the saloon busi- 
ness compare favorabW with other classes, in honest a'''>ility, men- 
tally and physically. Many are employed because they are teeto- 
talers; but, listen, nearly all enter it on account of the inducement it 
offers to them to get a living, and who is to blame? Let me illus- 
trate our predicament. It was against the law to kill deer. A 
hunter was arrested and proved guilty before a panel of twelve 
jurymen, but the jury brought in a verdict of "not guilty." The 
hunter's attorney, even, could! not understand why, until the hunter 
explained in a whisper. "Every one of those jurymen had a piece of 
that deer." So wealth has so far destroyed the finer sensibilities and 
the consciences of the people that they will not legislate against the 
saloon or permit you and I to do so, and never will under competi- 
tion, because there is money, both public and private, in it for them. 
.A.h, we have come to a point where patchwork won't do. A move- 
ment must be made of sufficient magnitude and magnanimity to com- 
mand respect, and carrymg with it a justifiable inducement as well, 
and be so luminous and bright with new light as to attract and hold 
the attention of all classes, and also so convmcing m its character as. 
to show on its very face that the end (self-interest) of all justifies the 
means. This is a revelation so fascinatmg that we yield to it as we 
do to love, but remember nothing less than the Combine will meet 
these requirements. Take another view. As I have intimated, I 
have a better opinion of brewers and saloon-keepers than to believe 
they really want to make orutes of other men or become brutes 
eventually themselves, just for the love of it. They are in the busi- 
ness for the money, first, last and all the time; so, after taking away 
the necessity for them to store up or of accumulating money for 
living purposes, as all our physical wants will be amply supplied by 
the dividends of the Combine. These will be found to be men as well 
as we, but if any still care for drink on account of their dep(raved 
appetites, they are entitled to our sympathy and protection. The 
Industrial Combine will not need' whisky, and so will not make it. 



THE SALOON. 67 

The law now does not permit the sale of spoiled meat, vege- 
tables, etc., so it may not permit the sale of spoiled grape juice or 
the liquid from rotten corn, wheat, rye or barley. You and I 
will feel safe with this whole matter left to a Board of Health, doc- 
tors, etc., who live on the dividend's of the Combine, and who are 
not in the least influenced by money considerations, but whose whole 
duty it is to keep people well. 

I confess I do not see a better use for the saloon buildings than 
to carpet and otherwise beautify them, and thus make them suitable 
for residences — temporary, at least. And the brewery buildings may 
Ibe used as great canneries of the pure, unfermented grape juice, made 
into syrup for food. But let thinkers think it out on purely business 
and economic lines, having their own self-interest and the self-in- 
terests of all the people at heart, not at all biased by what money 
there is in it. 

We are told that more liquor is drunk per capita now than for- 
merly, that saloons are on the increase, and that they are controlling 
politics more and more. In view of this fact, let me ask you, "Is 
reform a success now? Will it ever be?" To ask these questions is 
"but to answer them in the negative. Now, in view of your past en- 
deavor, and the direction we are going, and the rate of progress we 
are making, how long will it be until we reform into prohibition? 
Iwisten; I have been a church man for about fifty years, never drank 
a gill of intoxicating liquor in my life, and have frequently voted the 
prohibition ticket. I have believed, when seeing that the saloon 
was gaining on us, that there was no other way but to redouble our 
diligence along the reform pathway, but in plain view of the fact mus' 
say reform will never reach the case, and' thoughtfully, it is as weF 
that it cannot, for it shows us the greater evil, the leading cause of 
which we have failed to see, largely because we have been trying to 
remove an effect, at the same time nurturing, cultivating, almost sa- 
credly guarding the cause. We have been saying to our boys, "Get 
rich; compete for it, fight for it"; and to our girls, "Marry dollars, 
■or remain single." Wealth, wealth, wealth, honorably if you can 
forcibly if you must. Listen again; a cause can easily be removed, 
and its effect will cease, but an effect cannot be exterminated and 
seldom remedied, while the cause is allowed to live. Take a Cali- 
fornia example: An irrigating ditch is leaking. We try heroically 
to fix the break, yet it leaks more and more. We work harder and 
hardeir until exhaustion meets despair, and to keep from being 
drowned by the torrent. We step aside to think and take a quiet look 
at the wild waste of water, and ask ourselves, "Is there no other 
way?" Then, like a revelation, we think of the upper headgate. 
We hasten to close it down, and the water is turned into an entirely 
different channel. "Go thou and do likewise." The water was all 
right; wealth is all right, but both need directing. 

We have probably pursued this part of our subject far enough 
lest we lose our prestige and influence by being mistaken for a pro- 
hibition crank, and our method, simply anti-saloon, that and noth- 
ing more. But the People's Business Combine can be nothing but, 
and purely is, a business; and its business is' to care alike for all our 
interests, no matter who and what we are or how we have been mak- 
ing our living. So each and every one can join hands in its estab- 
lishment as purely a business enterprise, remaining quite dififerent, if 
we prefer, to any other effect it may have upon us as individuals or 
upon society as a whole. 



Letter to the Clergy. 

I am conscious of the fact that in the People's Industrial Com- 
bine I bring to you a proposition that will triumphantly and per- 
manently settle the quarrel now on between Labor and Capital, and 
in the lasting interests of both. Though it is not a pronounced reli- 
gious way I am sure it will be popular with the people and especially 
appeal to your sympathy. It will also put into the hands of the 
kind'ly disposed an authority, an ability to say to industrial evils, 
such as competition, saloons, etc., that we have agreed together as 
a people to get along without you. 

Moral suasion is all right, but it is not efificient in some aspects 
of family government, and you have no doubt often said, if he were 
my child I would restrain him, etc., so in society, the larger family, 
youi have come up against this or that social evil, and felt the need 
of the same kind of authority to restrain by love for the good of the 
child. We are living in a transitional state, a transition from compe- 
tition to combination, which this kind of restraint and direction will 
be possible, applicable and clearly just what is needed. The God of 
the universe, so it seems to me, is managing things with a master- 
hand, and, as we believe, will bring glorious results out of what has 
heretofore been overlooked or considered by men as madness and 
ruin. So that we will do well to observe what the wise Gamaliel 
said (Acts v: 39). "But if it be of God ye cannot overthrow it; lest, 
haply, ye be found even to fight against God." So let us, his pro- 
fessed followers, fall into His order. At one time the political inde- 
pendence from England was considered impracticable, but a time 
came when it became a fact. Christianity may have gained but little 
by our independence if that was all, for were we not about as free 
to serve God "according to our own conscience" before as after? 
England was nominally a Chriistian nation. The facts are, the real 
Christian element in the Declaration of Independence was industrial, 
rather than political, but this was overshadowed or covered up at the 
Tery first by war, and then by political organization — the war of 1812, 
the Mexican war of 1846, and the settling of the cloud of African 
slavery, the political attracting all the attention and the industrial 
suffering in silence. But did there not exist during all these years 
a cause of yet deeper grief to Him who was watching over us with 
fatherly patience and solicitude? We, like boys, continued to boast 
and brag over the American Eagle to the neglect of the suffering 
among us, caused by this, our neglect of industry and has permitted 
this inequality of wealth. 

The all-wise Father no doubt desired and expected us to be 
more aggressively Christian, as an independent nation, than we had 
been or could ever have become under the English nation as a polit- 
ical dictator. But many of us have not undeirstoodi Him. Others 
have quite willingly worshipped "wealth," the popular god, and so 
persistently that all our education and training has been turned ia 



CLERGY. 69- 

that fashionable direction, and the natural question, "How shall E 
get rich?" soon became so general that it was finally thought per- 
missible to pull another down, instead of the more slowly accumu- 
lating by natural productions and legitmate trade. Even the fol- 
lowers of Christ somehow have managed' to join in the ever-fashion- 
able race (mistaking selfishness for self-interest m business affairs), 
which growing more and more impetuous, until all human rights 
are ignored, trampled under foot, and the banner of the enemy is 
flying eveirywhere, "Get rich honestly if you can; at all events get 
rich." Peter might have said unto us, as he did to the people (Acts 
iii: 17), "Through ignorance ye did it." Our business and industrial 
conduct as Americans, is and has been so shamefully mistaken and" 
become so very inconsistent with the teaching of Christ that we hang 
our heads or wince when we hear men and women that we try to 
reach with the truths of salvation say, Christ is all right but Christians 
are not consistent in business afiFaiirs. Others are down under foot 
and troubled over their abject poverty caused by the inequality of 
wealth; and still others, absorbed in vexatious thought over their 
losses by cruel competition in trade; others distressingly anxious- 
about the results of speculative gambling; others vastly rich, yet 
being pursued like a hunted hare by a richer than they — all going 
pell-mell, no time to think of God or of aught else but to keep what 
they have and get more, unmindful of the Father having said, and" 
saying, "Do unto others as ye," etc. "Combine your interests, 
children, there is enough for all." Don't be so grasping and quar- 
relsome. 

So the forms of Godliness too often have taken the place of vital 
piety among its professed followers, and the irreligious that we had 
hoped to reach are disgusted when they are reminded that this is a 
professed Christian nation, buch is our industrial inconsistency, 
and yet other instances will occur to you when you try with me to- 
think out the fact and what we must do about it. 

jThe most natural thought, and the one that comes to us first, 
is the one of reform. Christians have all these years been urging 
reform, reform, reform, but with the present result. I am not 
scolding, but what we must have is a new and distinct business- 
center. Self-interest, industrially, must take the place of selfishness, 
and it can and will then harmonize with our Republican form of 
government, and not till then. 

National progress, owing to our intensive industry and the com- 
bination of capital in spite of competition, has been steadily on the 
increase. The political condition of the nation is one of pardonable 
pride. Statistics show great gain in wealth in the aggregate, and 
some have settled down to believe that from this fact somehow, al- 
though you and I cannot understand how, we are really better 
Christians than we get credit for being. Maybe so, but could' we not 
be that and yet have little enough Christianity in our business pro- 
cedures for competition among the masses, is still waging. Our 
reputation* is certainly not up to par with our privileges as a Re- 
public. We stand condemned! before Him who said, "For unto 
whomsoever much is given of him shall be much required" (Luke 
xii:48). We started toward industrial equality in our national 
youth; it was implied in our Declaration of Independence, but we 
very soon switched off and the preaching of industrial fairness, little 
heeded at the first, became less and less influential, so popular had' 
competition become, until now we are almost ashamed to use the- 
word reform. The facts are, a man can no more reform info a fit 
subject for Heaven than our nation can reform and continue at the 



70 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

same time the competitive idea of business. It is a relic of barbar- 
ism, and it stands diametrically opposed to the Christ teaching. 
I/Ove is the fulfilling of the law. "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto 
one of the least of these, my brethren, ye have done it unto me" 
(Matt. xxv:4o) is practical business, taught by the Christ, and must 
l)e taught as a purely business principle and tO' the industrial inter- 
ests of all. 

An industrial combine of all productive property above a home 
and itis belongings may seem radical until we look at the conditions 
foireshadowed! by the Postal Department as an imperfect and crippled 
example. This shows that we accepted the principle and of right can 
extend it. 

Take a negative point of view: Have you thought how unjustly 
the people have already appeared to be to selfish capitalists as they 
claim, depriving them of their just rights? It is iustice they may say, 
to own and claim rents from every court house. State capitol and Na- 
tional capitol; all these should be owned by private capital and rented 
to the government, as well as all schoolhouses. asylums, alms 
houses, etc. They may say, just think of the audacity of the people 
to presume to own and exempt from taxation this immense wealth, 
competing, mark you, against us and making us pay all the taxes, as 
well as feeding all pirisoners. soldiers, the feeble-minded, etc. Pri- 
vate capital could make out a very good case against the people. 
Now, if the people already control, say half of the property, and 
thus enter into active competition against private capital, is it not 
clear that either one or the other or both must fail in the end? A 
house thus divided against itself cannot stand. And also, if the pub- 
lic has rights up to this point, mav she not continue those rights to 
"the end? My efifort is not to advocate government ownership, but 
get away from incrusted notions that a nran must own homes and 
productive property to sell and speculate with or on, in order to be 
happy and free. Surely, if one is at liberty to sell, another is at liberty 
to buy, of course, with the result ultimately of owning vast property, 
and thus repeating, over and oveir aeain, the conditions that are 
now defeating Christianity, and forever will, and all in the name of 
a mistaken conception of personal liberty. 

Tentative treatment will not avail, will not get us out; we must 
be bold and emphatic; we must shine out from a new business center, 
and it must be so radical and of attractive force sufficient to move 
the great heart of the people, knowing no party, no nationality or 
oreed. We have intimated that competition has been the former 
rule of industrial action, and if so, continued! Christian moirals must 
forever be on the defensive. Then, again, if we do not, as a people, 
reach out and with a masterly hand lay hold on combination, now in 
its infancy, and compel it to serve all the people, it may grind some 
of us to powder. Think of it in its effects. The combine, as we 
now have it, is interested only for those who are in it, of course. 
They may give special favors, for, like special favors in return to 
other combines, and bribe a bare majority of the people by giving 
them a little stock, but what will become of the other half? We may 
say that Job's wife was a hard-hearted woman, but she fitly repre- 
sents the situation and the abjectly poor left out in that she advised 
Job tO' curse God and die. But be this as it may, there is a passing op- 
portunity never before demanded and will never again be offered for 
Christianity to take a stand for the home, and we believe she will 
but if not taken now it will never, in the very nature of things, 
be so near us again; hence our duty is imperative. I class it not, 
liowever, as a kind of a doleful duty, but rather as a gladsome priv- 



CLERGY. 7r 

ilege without any restraint from any source to step out and up and 
ori. Give other men an agreeable home here and I think we will be- 
the more likely to have such an one in eternity. 

I have in this chapter to the clergy referred to such things as 
most naturally concern them, but this and other chapters, though 
incomplete, have some points of added interests in them, and I 
hope you will .read them also. My central idea in all these pages is 
that the time has now come when society as a whole must enter intO' 
the inheritance of its own industries, and so bring both labor and 
capital under one management, and thus stop the fight. 

We must not permit our wealth to be monopolized by a few, 
while thousands of our people, as deserving as the few, are home- 
less. Intellect has suffered by the evil conditions under which our 
people have lived, and character has not and cannot attain to the 
Christian ideal, because of sordid teachings. The need is far the 
clergy, the lawyer, the doctor, the mechanic and the workman, skilled 
in either muscle or mind, and with all the intelligence and mental 
stamina that he possesses, to unite for the common good. Of 
course, some may sulk and scold, but let US do right and have a 
courage equal to the emergency. We may get the practical work- 
ings a little clearer by asking a few questions, and giving their 
answers. "I crossed the Atlantic to study the phenomenal growth 
of America," said an Englishman. "I meet a man at his gate and in 
genial conversation I isay to him, 'You have a splendid home.' 'Yes,. 
sir; we feel very much at home here. It came down to us from our 
grandfathers, and there is something about it that we cannot find 
elsewhere.' 'How much is your home worth?' 'Oh, sir, homes are 
not for sale. Mine was given me by the government to keep and 
it would not seem right to sell it if I could.' 'Excuse me, but I 
understood you to say that it came down to you from your grand- 
father.' 'Yes, so it did, but the governm;ent guarantees it to me in a 
peculiar sense and a most positive title. It is like this: at the time of 
the transition I happened to have a vast amount of property in my 
possession, this home amongst other things, all of which the gov- 
ernment assumed control of by paying me for it, which pay I valued 
highly at the firist, but the pay gradually lost attractiveness, being- 
excelled by the attractiveness of the new education of doing unta 
others just as you would have them do unto you, which in its work- 
ing results so. far excelled the old idea of selfish grabbing for every- 
thing in reach that, as I say, the pay I got from the government, which 
they gave me just to satisfy me, has now but little attraction for me.' 
'But why did the government buy your home property?' 'Well, as I 
sec it now, for two or three reasons. So widespread had the idea 
become of buying and selling for profit, that I really thought that 
I must sell it, sell anything and everything. Nothing was of any 
value that a man could not sell was my teaching, as I now see it, 
a monstrous fallacy. The government bought everything from me. 
Most of the people that had beautiful homes bought them back, 
again, simply agreeing to the government's restriction and taking 
the government's guqiranty as a homestead, so it could not be taken 
from them or any mem"ber of their family after them, as there is no 
way of getting rid' of a homestead you know except by abandoning 
it, and then it goes back to the government.' 'Do people ever 
abandon their homesteads?' 'Oh, yes; some for climatic reasons, 
some for the reason of "jetting closer to their choice for work, some 
because their homes are too large and hence burdensome. In these: 
cases they would arrange with the government to take care of part. 
or exchange the whole for a smaller, neater and more compact 



72 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

homestead. After all, a home just large enough to accommodate 
one's family is the nicest size.' 'But you said you sold your home to 
the government. On what conditions and how did you get it back?* 
""Oh, the government gave it back, as it always did homesteads. Of 
course, I return what it paid me for it, but the real title I hold to my 
home, to all legal intents and purposes, comes through the govern- 
ment instead of from my grandfather. I really never had a secure 
title to it before, for it could have been taken for my debts and 
was subject to taxation, and even if no one else took it, the city and 
county or State could have taken it for taxes; not so now, as no 
homestead i'S taxed. Another peculiarity about it is that no mem- 
ber of my family, nor all of them together, can sell it away from 
Tne, and it would not be right for me to have the privilege of selling 
it away from them. You see, another just reason why the govern- 
ment bought my homestead besides the reasons that I wanted' to sell 
it, and that it wanted to guarantee to me a better title than any in- 
dividual could possibly give me, was a disposition on the part of the 
government to treat all alike in the distribution of homes. As it is, 
all are alike secure, and as nearly satisfied as is possible to satisfy 
human nature. All feel that the government has been fair with them 
at any rate, and if their home was not just their ideal of what a 
home should be at the first, the government, in providing them all 
with work, co-operative effort, giving such magnanimous returns in 
dividends, made them all feel that it would be only a matter of a 
year or two when they would be able to make their homes ideal to 
them. I assure you, however, that it is not those who have the 
largest homes that are the most elated and pleased with them. 'You 
spoke of the magnanimous return for work.' 'Yes,, the monthly 
dividend on our stock in the great combine (in other words as a 
great industrial department of government, is magnanimous and no 
mistake, and it is reasonable to expect that it should be when we 
take into account that it has every ^advantage in its favor, not only 
all original prodluction, but perfect control of all the avenues of dis- 
tribution.' 'But about distribution of dividends, does every one 
have to take a certain portion of what is produced?' 'No, no; they 
get their dividends ih^ cash or its equivalent, and buy what they 
please. Some like a good bill of fare, but do not care so much for 
fine clothes; others like a nobby house, but do not care so much for 
an elegant turnout. When the members of a family get their divi- 
dends foir the month they deduct as much as required for the neces- 
sities of life and divide the remainder up among the luxuries — it 
may be a new veranda to the house, a new bicycle, an extra box of 
oranges, or a summer hat — or they may set a portion of it aside from 
month tOi month, to buy a turnout; or they may be kindly disposed 
towards some one acting as a rnissionary in a foreign land, and 
with glad hearts set apart all above a necessity for them. The Board 
of Health of the Industrial Combine only requires that all workers 
shall be kept up to their highest standard of usefulness, and if any 
fall below that standard the cause is inquired into by this medical 
board and proper steps taken.' 

" 'But how are those cared for who are unable from any cause 
to work?' 'Why, if they do not belong to any certain family, as 
nearly all do now, an allotment is made for them.' 'These running 
expenses of the government must be very great!' 'True, but not 
nearly so gireat as they were before the government, through the 
combine, assumed control, for the very good reason that every one 
care'S now, being one in interest, whereas, then, his rise depended on 
'downing a fellow-man, and he was interested, not in good govern- 



CLLRGY. 73 

ment, but only in getting up higher himself. The combine 
pays al 1 running expenses far more economically than they 
were ever paid before.' 'But is there not danger of failure of the 
dividends?' 'No, not in the least. A general famine even would not 
affect us much, for the heads of industrial departments have much 
in storage, of such things as are susceptible of storage, and a local 
failure of crops would not aflFect us at all, because our network of 
railroads can distribute so quickly. Then it is the business of some 
of the heads of departments to keep posted and anticipate any prob- 
able shortness of crops and prepare for it in advance; and then again, 
even if the whole of the United States were short on some crop, 
international trade would come to our relief, and to pay for desirable- 
foreign commodities, our manufactories might be run day and night 
if necessary to produce articles to export in exchange for the in- 
crease of imports, and thus, by economizing and co-operation in all 
our industries, our dividends are sustained.' 'But how about me- 
chanics, merchants, etc., to rtin these mills — hand manufactories? 
Farmers must be idle, and this class of men over-worked.' 'No, not 
at all. A slight change may be necessary in the distribution of 
workmen, for a time, so as to leave experts in charge, but such a 
contingenty is anticipated in the apprenticeship; a sufificient number 
of young men and women for the unskilled! class of workers are 
trained by the industrial schools and ready for these emergencies."" 
'But I am more concerned about how you reconcile the change from 
the old conditions of work when you please, where you please, and 
for whom you please. Docs it not amount to a surrender of his lib- 
erty for Oine to go into the Combine's employment?' 

" 'Indeed, sir, you are laboring under a very great misconcep- 
tion, as the very reverse is true. In the first place, we have a cer- 
tainty of dividends for the uncertainty of wages that existed 
then in every department of industry. Second, You then 
worked at whatever you could catch, instead of when, where, 
and for whom you please. We now are able to choose 
our work, at least to have a second or third choice. Wages existed 
then and were usually based on mere subsistence, with no home. 
Now we have a home assured to us, and in a very just sense we are 
our own employers, as we own the combine, and are working for 
ourselves. No, sir, we do not care to> go back to wages any more 
than a slave to slavery.' 

" 'Were you not afraid to venture to cut loose from the old wage 
system?' 'Not at all, after we were brought to see that labor had 
always been in the end anyhow, its own paymaster. The capitalist, 
to be sure, sometimes advanced the laborer his daily or weekly 
wages, but he of course always expected that this amount would be 
returned with double or many times the amount he had advanced to 
labor, and that a time would soon come when the laborer would 
pay his own way, so it seemed plain that labor could, if it would, 
employ itself and pay itself in dividends — if not, why not? So, with 
the consent and aid of the professions, as well as business men who 
had become convinced that competition was a dismal failure, and 
that combination was a dngerousmbocni'paihwh?pejtwould n'nMv'v- 
that combination was a diangerous foe, unless controlled, and having 
the endorsement of the clergy of every denotnination that took 
Christ as its example, in business matters as well as salvation, why- 
should any one fear to venture on so plain and short a road — one that 
we could see the end of from the beginning. So all the people irt 
common cause moved over the line.' 



74 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

" 'But I am anxious to know on what basis the Government set- 
tled with the owners?' 

" 'It was estimated that the average family of five, having their 
home free from rent and taxes, could live and improve their home 
to a limited extent on $1,200 a year. It would take $40,000 at three 
per cent, to product an interest of $1,200 a year, so $40,000 was 
taken as the basis of stock of every family, not that this was to be 
the final settlement with the family, but rather to obtain a fair and 
equitable basis for the settlement of the claims of original owners of 
property; this as you see made the matter a very simple item of 
business. In making the transfer, the mill, railroad, steamsHip, fac- 
tory, etc., were not stopped at all, but all business ran right on, as 
it was really to the interest to all that it should, and every original 
owner, instead of owning $40,000 in a single factory or mill or farm, 
had a $40,000 interest in the combine. If any man owned more than 
$40,000, he was paid the difference in cash, if the amount was small, 
otherwise in Government securities, running five, ten and' twenty 
years, bearing three per cent, interest. If he felt individually that 
owning the bonds was a matter of indifference to him, as he now has 
his home assured to him, and if he cared to do his part in the Gov- 
ernment employ, in any position from farmer to general superintend- 
ent, he was entitled to $100 a month for current expenses for himself 
and family.' 

" 'But did not such a proceeding bankrupt the Governmient ?' 

" 'Not at all, as now in a very just sense, the government really 
owns something to base a bond upon. Formerly, it really owned 
nothing that was remunerative. Now it owns in a sense all that is 
remunerative and this gives its financial standing a real basis for nec- 
essary indebtedness. In the sense that the combine or corporation 
receives its authority to do business direct from the government, 
so it is directly tributary to the government in a new and a very real 
sense. Please remember that this is a self-government and 'SO is 
not a something separate and apart from us. We are the govern- 
ment.' 

" ' But if I understood you correctly, the combine and not the 
government, owned everything.' 

" 'True, and yet the combine is tributary to the government, 
and is held like every citizen, under government control. The politi- 
cal government is all powerful. It can draft every able-bodied man 
to fight in its defense, and it can use all property to pay its debts now, 
as it always has, since the signing of the Declaration of Independ- 
ence.' 

" 'But issuing $8,000 to each of your 70,000,000 inhabitants 
would create an immense indebtedness.' 

" 'You misunderstand again. The government, in one sense of 
the word, is no more indebted to these citizens than a father is 
indebted to his son just born. The $8,000 is only a basis for a just 
dividend, and is considered a share in the combine, but in no sense 
an indebtedness. For example, five men organize a stock company, 
with a capital of twenty thousand dollars: is it supposed that that 
company is in debt to these men? or vice versa? It would be an 
innocent aflFair, if true, like a man indebted to himself. No, the 
political government is not in debt to these individuals, but really 
owns the individuals and all that they have. In our transactions from 
the beginning, we have followed the legal procedlire of a combine 
formed by the best lawyers, who arc now actuated by self-interest 
;and so have walked! on firm ground from first until now.' 

" 'But I do not see how the individual will take any delight in 



CLERGY. 7& 

being rich in bonds, as after a man has a home insured and sufficient 
sum invested in a solid combine, the dividends of w^hich provide him 
with an abundance for current expenses, even when the time comes, 
for him to receive the cash for the bonds, what can he do with the 
cash?' 

" 'Well, in the first place, there can be no possible objection 
to his living partially or entirely ofT of his income, if he does not 
prefer to do his fair share of work, providing he does not become in 
any way an annoyance, a burden or a hindrance to the individual or 
the government in its business affairs. Even if he does not wish to 
live in his home, he can turn his home over to the government and 
go abroad if he wishes, — where his cash will be useful to him. Only 
ft must be considered that he is not entitled to any dividends for the 
reason that dividends are based on service rendered in the employ 
of the comibine. This is fair, because the profits of the combine 
are contingent upon its production. All profits go direct to the com- 
bine and the productions are contingent, of course, upon the actual 
work rendered; so when work stops, dividends stop, if the medical 
staff decides that the worker is able to work; but any one can live '^n 
his own cash, although he must not become a public charge or a 
public nuisance, or in any way a disturber of the peace. Most capi- 
talists, however, take special delight in being one of our prosperous 
people, and in doing cheerfully what is to be done, rather than live in 
idleness; for it has been said that industry is as natural as sleep, 
especially when one has a right to select his special work and where 
they have capacity they become very useful as workmen, foremen, 
superintendents, managers of departments, etc' 

" 'This leads me to inquire about salaries for officers?' 

They went into obscurity with wages; both of which seem now 
and are considered in the same light as buying a man's vote was, 
formerly considered or paying a man for doing right. If a man 
can do, that is reason enough for him to do, and if he does not do, 
he should be punished for not doing rather than be paid a premium 
for doing. Then again, every man has a home now, and his divi- 
dends pay his expenses and he doesn't need or want a salary. 

" 'But how about lawyers, doctors, clergymen, teachers, profes- 
sional men and women?' 

"'Lawyers are among the most respectable members of society; 
the practice of law, however, or settling disputes concerning prop- 
erty, all went with its father, the devil, as some would say, (meaning 
competition of course). Right business relations once establi_shed 
by the great combine on the now accepted basis, 'Do in business, 
-matters as you would be done by,' would set that kind of litigation 
as formerly based ^on intentional selfishness, out of the question; 
but the ever growing and rapidly progressing civilization of this 
twentieth century is continually bringing out new and varied features 
adapted to the legal profession and for them to decide upon. The 
basis of the combine self-interest precludes selfishness, so the lawyer 
has found it to his self-interest to take his heart with his head into all 
■decisions of law.' 

" 'But how does it affect the doctors?"' 

'* 'I see you are determined to press me to the end of the list. 
Won't you come with me into the house?' 

" 'Oh no, if you please, its very pleasant here in the arbor, but 
the most grateful sensation about it all to me is that my brothers 
of the legal profession have found their hearts and a way to use them 
and yet not die young, as an English lawyer would say if so affected.. 
I shall carry the idea back to England as a revelation." 



'76 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

"'You asked me about our doctors: I am pleased to say that 
"they were among the first, if not the very first, to see that the 
business interests of all were really the same; that my self-interest 
in industry must necessarily be my brother's self-interest and that 
the sum of our industrial interest must all be under one management 
and not mixed up with, but only tributary to political government, 
and they have set forth the ideas very clearly, that physical health is 
conducive to happiness, that healthy parents are of far more BUSI- 
NESS importance than healthy stock, and that it is far more practi- 
cal in its application to get the human animal to eat and drink what 
is known to be healthful and to let alone such food and drink as is 
not healthy, than it ever was or could be to train the lower animal to 
■do so. Wihen once the business view of its efltect on the combine 
was set up as a guide, it became apparent that the combine was 
affected not only instantly by the worker not being physically able 
to do his full share of the combine's work, but ultimately by bringing 
into the world children deficient in physical ability to work. This 
business view quite naturally settled the vexed liquor question, and in 
a way that was not only unexpected and positive but in a way that 
it will stay settled. Moral suasion, backed by the clergy and tem- 
perance societies, had went down before the greed for wealth, so 
fashionable had it become to be rich; but when all simply associated 
themselves into a business combine ond pigeon-holed business prop- 
erly, this temperance question went naturally to the Board of Health; 
and we all now, being parties in business interest with them, will- 
ingly defer to their decision, for they the same as we, have no other 
care but to keep people well and physically able to do their best in 
the interest of the combine. So an anti-drink society now is as 
superfluous as an anti-steel society. Kleptomaniacs and intemperate 
people are both to be pitied, and we take the best of care of them, 
but it's in our business planning and to our business interest to have 
just as few in our asylums as possible.' 

" 'I am anxious to find out what has become of the clergymen; 
it looks like he couldn't have much left to do.' 

" 'Oh, yes sir, for example, if a vigilance committee in England' 
■should execute a few thieves it would not do away with the necessity 
for the commandment, 'Thou shalt not steal.' Removing the 
obstructions to sobriety, removing the cause for the crazy greed for 
personal wealth and pointing out the inconsistencies of church men 
in conforming to competitive business afTairs, only really unloads so 
much from off the shoulders of the clergy, which they never should 
have been required to carry, and puts these things on to the different 
departments of the business combine, which it can and does carry as 
a feather's weight, when it once becomes to the jelf-interest of all to 
do so. The people have a chance now to be really good that they 
never could have had before these business monstrocities were 
removed, so rather than taking away the good offices of the clergy, 
it opens up a way to the heart and gives the individual time to think, 
and disposition to listen to more and yet more about the author of 
the practical business motto of the business combine, 'Whatsoever 
ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them.* 
Many of the clergy had overlooked the fact that competition was 
really fighting a brother man, hence neither Christian or apostolic, 
they finally saw that to be fair to those engaged improperly, a way 
must be provided with proper employment as a necessary induce- 
ment to quit the improper. (See Saloons., page — , chapter — ). So 
strenuous, indeed, had the fight become among the laity that the 
■ clergy were compelled to look out for themselves financially by 



CLERGY. 77 

joining in the fight, too, or starve, so that their own inconsistency 
■became appalling to them, and when the industrial business combine 
offered a plain and righteous way out they accepted it and became its 
advocates, preaching it to the people, and as a result men can now 
enter into business life without danger of becoming contaminated 
or injured by it. The clergy, now encouraged by the better success 
of their work, gave themselves up to their work and in a sense they 
never could have done before, as a home and a $40,000 interest in the 
combine is assured to every family, not because they work or don't 
work, but because the man is a man and the woman is a woman; 
and! when the man is honestly doing his part and the woman honestly 
doing her part, their dividends are deserved, and what is true of the 
clergy is true of all. Rewards for merit, promotion for excellency, 
honorable mention for diligence, public gratitude for virtue, medals 
for bravery, etc., are a far more efficient stimulus to high endeavor 
than salary, fees, wages or personal wealth.' 

" 'From your explanations, I need hardly ask about the teach- 
ers, for your added enlightenment would bring teachers more and 
more in demand.'' 

" 'Yes, all our schools are industrial, kindergarten, musical, etc., 
all business schools up to, and including colleges, the combine 
through its board of education, having intimated to them from the 
very first, about how many should be prepared for the various occu- 
pations, that there be no longer years of preparation for a trade, or 
profession, and then honest effort snubbed and he or she impljcity 
told "No room for you." You take whatever you can catch or 
starve; aye, and the body did starve at once, yet the body eked' out a 
miserable existence little better than starving, in fact a semi-starva- 
tion for life, all for the want of a little previous definite planning by 
the head of the larger family, society, and which it can do when and 
only when it is crystalized into an industrial business combine. Our 
theory is that real happiness is born a twin. England would do well 
to adopt the combine idea if for no other reason than to develop and 
sustain soul power. Yes, you are quite right; e.d'ucotion is co-txten- 
sive with its usefulness, all making it plainly apparent that if this life 
is preparatory and but a vestibule of the immortal, how greatly de- 
sirable is immortality, and the grave is but a continued victory." ' 




What Effect will Industrial Equality Have 
Upon the Church? 

This question may not intcirest or attract the attention of many- 
yet there are some who have a deep affection for the CJiristian 
church, both Catholics, anti Protestants, who will be particularly 
interested in contemplating its effect on that organization. The com- 
bine, as has been observed, is purely a business association, but is of 
such magnitude and so far-reaching in its character as to touch not 
only the industry, but indirectly the salvation of the people. He that 
knew the character of all business relations, taught. "As ye would 
that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them," thus plainly 
intimating that He doies care, and so much that He gives implicit di- 
rection to us regarding our business conduct so that we may be able 
to get the very most out of life. This Great Teacher set this rule of 
conduct for the individuil and society so high that it is co-extensive 
in its universality with salvation; for hear Him say, "If a man says, 
'I love God,' and hateth his brother, he is a liar, for he that loveth 
not his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he 
hath not seen." The intimation is plain; love your brother first, 
love him now, love him anyhow, whether you do or do not compre- 
hend God, yet love your brother. You can comprehend your brother, 
you can comprehend his desires, you can minister to his wants and 
needs, and when you find yourself so doing for the love you have 
for your brother, you are getting closer to where you can learn to 
your satisfaction whether the love you have for your brother is 
really final. The industrial combine seeks to bring all up to this 
point, not only because it's humane to do so, but because it's right 
between man and man in their economic business relations. 
The combine is not supposed to make saints out of sinners, but we 
observe when men are right and just in their business relitions. the 
Church will have reason to rejoice. We smile at the incredulity of 
the pagan as he worships a wooden idol, or pity him for his ignor- 
ance; but if lie knew how we toil after gold like the prize fighter, now 
up, now down, weary and worn, tired to exhaustion, all this for only 
what we get out of it in this short life and no eternity of happiness 
to be gained or hoped for by it, the pagan would call us fools or 
worse. "Oh, to see ourselves as others see us." The desire of the 
church, both Catholic and Protestant, in its business relations, is to 
help those in need; the .mderlying business principle of the combine 
is also to help those who need help, so they agree upon this essential 
point, while competition is opposed to both. Its heartlessness 
reminds me of a pathetic incident of my boyhood days, — a timid, but 
beautiful little puppy could not get up courage enough to chase the 
pigs out of the yard. A man said. "I will fix him." so he picked up 
my playmate and dropped the beautiful little animal into the hog 
pen. Of course the hogs jumped on to him much as competition 



THE CHUECH. 79 

jumps on to a timid boy of beautiful character just emerged from the 
home and who is just starting out in business life (business training 
in itself is all right, but our methods are abominable and irrational), 
the puppy had tO' fight, he could not get out of it, the hogs with 
their competitive, ferocious natures and appetites would have eaten 
him up and even if they had, it would have been coldly remarked, 
•'Poor fellpw, but after all that was about all he was good for," but 
on the other hand, if he had fought to a finish and won, though 
he came out a savage brute to forever fight, men would have stroked 
bim approvingly and patted him on the back and called him by 
that loveable and eminently suitable name, "Trix," they would have 
given him all he wanted and then turned in a transcontinental rail- 
road or two. "Consistency, thou art a jewel!" I have noticed that 
competitive business methods are irrational and at the same time un- 
christian; and yet church people are induced by the force of present 
public opinion and stress of necessity, yea, even compelled to a great 
extent to adopt them, knowing that they are evil, yet trying to 
justify themselves by choosing the lesser, as they think, of two evils, 
or of using the existing competitive methods under protest. So the 
.church is ill at ease, the rich sneeringly ignoring it on the one 
hand, the poor saying. "If that be the policy of the church, I want 
none of it." Others tolerate it as a bit of harmless diversion. ^Thus 
the church diecrfiases in power, though it may increase in nurnbiers. 
Now suppose our business aims were to benefit the poor without 
being unjust to the rich, as the Combine proposes, that it were our 
studiedl business, as it is, or should be, in the home, to help the weak 
oir those who need the help, instead of robbing the timid cripple, or 
the poor to make the rich richer. Don't you see that church people 
could and would be consistent in their church life and thendon't you 
see that the church would gather prestige instead of ignommy? 
The masses say now, "We admire Jesus the Christ," but they scoff 
at Christianity as being Christless, resulting in untold loss to the 
church, whether they be right or wrong in their merciless judg- 
ment. So you see the church is judged, not by its text-book, but by 
its adherents, so we ask you to help to make it possible for its mem- 
bers in their business life to reflect the face of the Christ by domg, 
really doing, as He anxiously directs. Like the ebb and flow of the 
tide, business usages, flowing now toward evil, society must turn it 
to flow exactly in the other direction. Combination is the dlirect anti- 
the/sis of competition. Let me reiterate it, again and again, until it 
fastens itself on your minds and hearts, that combination is Chris- 
tian, as well as founded on a correct busimess principle, and a cor- 
rect' business principle as well as Christian, so that both Christians 
and infidels should stand up in their manhood and womanhood and 
demand that the principle actuating combination spread its benign, 
sheltering wings over all the people of which the church is a part. 
You observe that I have not asked what effect the church may have 
on the combine: to answer this would not at all be within the scope 
of this book, but in view of their every interest, the people, the 
church and the Christ, will all welcome self-interest, the spirit of the 
combine, "Do as ye would be done by," not only because it is 
churchlike, but because it is the very best business policy. We all 
belong to God primarily, but only a fragment of us belong to the 
church, and even were it possible I would not draw a line between, 
for we', in a great and comprehensive sense, belong to each other. 
Our business must be made to be a blessing to all, and the every-day 
combine has in it the secret. Let us cease fighting it lest, haply, we 
be found to be fighting against ourselves and against God. I re- 



80 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

cently listened to a preacher and business man belonging to one of 
our churches on this subiect. Reference was made to Revelations — 
"Would that thou wast either cold or hot, being lukewarm. I will spew 
thee out of my mouth." The church is just there, and no mistake, but 
I pitied both the preacher in his eairncstness and the church in its 
helplessness, for they must do — I emphasize do; they must do 
business or starve, and that means to them also to shut up the 
church doors, both seemingly unconscious of the fact that God 
never intended and does not now intend, that we shall DO business 
at all but rather do unto others, etc. (I have followed out this idea 
of doing business as a business at length in my letter to farmers.) A 
church man must be consistent, but he cannot possibly be and do 
business selfishly as we know it; we must have a different idea of 
business, a different business center- self-interest, from which to ra- 
diate. Church people are entitled to the gratitude of every American 
citizen for holding to the principles of Industrial Combine, but like 
the Jew in believing that no one could be a fit subject for heaven un- 
less he first becomes a Jewish proselyte^ so many of the church people 
have unwittingly thought that a man must have a change of heart, 
be converted if you please, and then he would necessarily be just 
in business because he was a Christian and that he was not ex- 
pected to be without. While that may or may not be, to be just in 
business because we are Christians, if at all possible under competi- 
tive methods, is all right of course, but it is far different from being 
just in business that we may more readily become Christians. Christ 
laid down a business principle, "Do unto others," etc., which, like his 
salvation was as broad r-.s the world, but separate and distinct. Sal- 
vation is not business, nor is business salvation; each may help the 
other, though neither can be a substitute for the other. The church 
(God help her) has tried to carry both because business would not 
carry its own load, and thus impeded her own progress by being 
loaded down by a burden as unnecessary and as unjust for the 
church to carry as it was great and crushing. If the infidel world 
could have been induced, 1900 years ago, to act with business com- 
mon sense and walk "in His steps" in industrial matters, in that the 
real business interest of one man was the real business interest of 
all men, Jew or Gentile, Christian or infidel, and with "as ye would," 
it surely would have been the best business policy for all of them. 

By a little planning the people can now organize a combine as as- 
suredly as a railroad company can, with the modification that all the 
people be stockholders; then busines will be done from a new cen- 
ter and self-interest will take the place of selfishness in business, and 
no banner but self-interest can attract the attention and respect and 
appreciation of all. The scriptures intimates that lying was always 
more or less common, but it remained for competition in business 
as we now have it, until lying has become the standard education, 
the real livelihood of the people, so unscrupulous the masses, andl 
so universal the rule, that if a dealer does tPi. the truth he loses caste 
and commands little or no credence. Is it not about time that 
would-be Christian people should see that "Thy will be done on 
earth" really means earth, not Heaven, not Hell; that when he said 
. earth He meant in our industrial relations. The plain proposition is 
to graft self-in)terest onto 'self-government. Existing combines show 
us how they do it among their stockholders; it is a practical way, a 
legal business way of establishing truth in matters of trade as well 
as even justice among all the people. The people are not so much 
to blame; they do not see the real church now; they only see church 
members, and they are swamped in competitive business. If we 



THE CHURCH. 81 

showed like sense in this that we do in other things we could clear 
away the useless rubbisk so that the beauty of the church could shine 
out to bless the world, and be seen and remembered by our business- 
consistency. Self-government needs the self-interest as exempli- 
fiedi by industrial combines for the highest perfection of both; this 
resolves the brotherhood of man into a business fact, and will settle 
6oth the labor and the liquor problem, and I appeal to the Christiatt: 
sentiment of the nation to come tO' the rescue. 




Letter to Boys and Girls. 

In my letter to the boys and girls of America I may occasion- 
ally include those of my own age, for there seems to be no invar- 
iable rule, like a rule in arithmetic, to tell us at just what age, if at 
all, people cease to be boys and girls. Then so many pounds avoir- 
dupoise does not make a man or woman, neither does light weight 
prevent lesser folks from being men and women. I will try to in- 
dicate later on what does make men and women. 

But few of you know me personally or can ever get acquainted 
with me except through this letter; so, if you please, let me give you 
a pen picture of myself — not that I am handsome, for, strange to say, 
most men resent being called handsome. "What a pretty old man," 
would make me — well, not sick, but a little nauseated. Now if it 
seems strange to say that men do not care to be called handsome, 
it must not be considered strange that women do. Do you know why? 
Well, that's a question you can think about. I may answer it, also, 
later on, but I am now in haste to show you my picture: I am sixty 
years old, about six feet tall, weigh about 155, lbs., light complexion, 
brown eyes, iron-grey hair and grey beard; but it was not always 
grey, do you know why? There, that will do for the picture. 

A short lesson in history: I was raised on the farm, began 
teaching school at seventeen, taught sixteen years, except a year or 
so, was in the great war of the rebellion, graduated at Rush Medical 
College at 35, and practiced medicine for twenty years, and am now 
writing to you. So there is my autobiography. Now if you should 
meet me anywhere always speak, for you see we have been intro- 
duced, and will become better acquainted, and, I hope, firm friends. 
I am not quite able now, for some reason, to ride a bicycle, but as I 
walk along I love to toss stones and sticks out of the bicycle path, 
and thus add a little to theenjoy ment of the boys and girls who do 
ride and when I see the difficulties in the way of boys and 
girls who want to build themselves up into good men and good 
women, I am going to* make it my business to take awaty the 
obstructions in their path, and thus help them in their life 
work. This is my purpose in writing this book. I think 
my success as a school teacher was largely due to urging 
my pupils to do rather than not to do. The motto over my desk 
just now reads, "Onward," so that I seldom had to say, "Don't do 
this" or "Don't dio that," having the mind and heart busy in doing 
tright, is the best way to treat wrongdoing. The royal road to good- 
ness is work at it so busily that you have no time for badness and 
idleness is not only a little bad of itself but it leads us into other bad- 
ness. There, that will do for the first lecture. 

I Tem/ember we used to think it was fun to find out why A was 
called A, and B was called B, and that a word was only the sign of 
an idea, and why; and that 7x9 was only just 9 added or taken 7 
times. A little further on, in square root, it was funny to find that 
the square of the base and of the perpendicular of a right-angled tri- 



BOYS AND GIELS. 83 

angle would just equal the square of the hypotenuse every time; 
and the square of the hypotenuse of a right angle triangle was equal 
to the square of the other two sides; and why the earth was a little 
flattened at the poles, so that it lacks twenty-six miles of being as 
big around from north to south as it is from east to west. We 
were absorbed with history, and were inspired by the thought, "All 
that other folks can do, why, with patience, should not you?" etc. 
We were all alive and lively — we knew it — we realized it; but when 
we got to the question, what is life? we opened our mouths to an- 
swer so easy a question, but stammered, and finally gave it up. 
Even the teacher could not answer. Can you? 

The world, and we as a part of it, seems to have been made for 
a design; hence there must have been a designer. So we did not 
grieve, but rejoiced rather that there were some things that we could 
not answer: it made us feel so secure to be carried on and on in the 
arms of One so much stronger than we, and we intuitively began to 
learn from Him the origin of wisdom, and finally trust Him in all 
things to whom' we were so closely relatea. 

To the question, "Do you like to do chores?" a few hands would 
go up, but not all; but this opened up to our wondering minds the 
great field of industry. We were told that industry was as natural as 
sleep. Why was it, then, that all did not put up their hands in an- 
swer to the question about choreis? For we all do like to sleep — it 
is so agreeable. Don't you think that if the chores were as agree- 
able as sleep, we would all like to do them? Now, if for any cause 
the chores have become disagreeable to a stout, healthy boy or girl, 
we know there must be a cause for it, so- we must try to find out 
whatever it is and' remove that cause, and then the boys and girls 
who kept their hands in their laps will put them up. For it is the ob- 
ject of this letter to show clearly that if industry is not agreeable, 
it can be made agreeable, as it is absolutely necessary, and that a 
combine of all industry takes away all its disagreeable features. If 
I should ask the boys and girls why they do not like to do the chores 
as a rule I would get the answer, "Because some other boy or girl, 
or some one else, would not do his share," for such is our intuitive 
sense of justice. I hasten to observe that we are very largely in- 
fluenced by our education, and education is a reflection of our en- 
vironment, so we must then rectify our environment. This opens up 
another lesson in history. Yes, we live in a republic, that is a gov- 
ernment that gives boys and girls the best chance of any form of 
government, because the people themselves govern. Most 
other governments are ruled by a king; the one is just the re- 
verse of the other, you see. Now, having the form of government 
best adapted to us, we are in a position to do as we would be done by 
among ourselves, aren't we? So if our environments are not what 
they ought to be we are the fellows that want to know it and we'll 
make 'em right; we should not only know that fact, but also know 
how to remedy them — then we, as boys and girls with a purpose co- 
extensive with the emergency, pull off our wraps and set back our 
hats, just ready foir and equal to that emergency. 

We read that our fathers met together one day and signed a 
document called now the Declaration of Independence, and if, the 
British could have caught them they would have hanged every one 
of them for it. That document, like the Bible, we think a good deal 
of, but also, like the Bible, we don't read it very often, and hardly 
know what it says — much less study out what it means. It says in 
one place "All men were created equal" — that "they are endowed 
with certain inalienable rights," that "among these r.re life, liberty 



■^■t THE COMBINE IDEA. 

and the pursuit of happiness," that "to secure these rights govern- 
ments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the 
consent of the governed," that's you and I, yes. Now, there are 
three things referred to — the first is life; we have that, yes: the sec- 
ond is liberty; and we have that in a larger measure than any gov- 
ernment under the sun (but more about "that in another place) : the 
third is, the pursuit of happiness. Well, if the pursuit of happiness is 
one of our inalienable rights, we will give it a lively chase, and catch 
too. So here goes. It says up there in the Declaration that all men 
were created equal. We will have to see aoout that. "Man," as one 
has innocently said, "embraces the women," yes, and means every- 
body of course; so I ask, "Jimmy, is one girl equal to another?" 
"We-1-1, hardly." We know he thinks of a special one of them, and 
that she is equal to the whole lot, so I turn to Mary for a more 
fluent answer to the same question about the boys. She answers, 
■"Why, no, of course not" — that settles it, and so our forefathers were 
mistaken about equality, but yet, as Jefferson wrote that Declaration, 
it must have been right, but maybe I am on the wrong track. I say 
that boys must be so fed and so clothed and cramped oir stretched 
as need be, to make them all of equal length, like logs, 
just five feet and a half long at twenty-one; and that every girl 
shall be treated just the same way until she can be made to admit that 
she is twenty-one and made just the same length as the boys. "Oh," 
Henry says, "I don't like tall girls, but only about like — " and he 
would be turned out of school before he would say who "about like" 
-was. The tallest and most accomplished girl in the school breaks the 
silence by deliberately saying, "Don't you think, teacher, 
that five and a half feet is a little too tall for a man?" "Oh, I don't," 
eagerly speaks out the dumcy-daisy of the class, — "I think tall boys 
are just — " "Well, go on, Daisy," but she remembers, and is mum. 
Well, I recollect that my schoiol is an average one, composed of 
just one hundred boys and one hundred and five girls. (I don't know 
why God made five more girls out of every hundred' than he did 
boys, but some statistics say that He has, and that settles it) and I 
put the question, hoping to get five majority, — "All of you that think 
that five and a half feet linear measurement for boys is just about 
right, please stand on your feet." I look around and see all the short 
boys and long girls standing together. I put the other side — "All 
you that think that five and a half feet linear measurement for girls 
is just the right length, please stand on your feet." My long girls 
sit down, and up jump the short girls, and my short boys sit down 
and the long boys unwind themselves, and I see my ishort girls and 
long boys standing together; so I conclude that Jefferson could not 
liave meant equal length linear measure, and I try i6o lbs. avoir- 
dupoise, and get the same peculiar vote. The big boys and the little 
girls stand together, and the little boys and the big girls stand to- 
gether, ISO equality in the Declaration docs not mean equal weight, 
but my class, and you, the reader, have learned this fact, that "equal" 
is really in the Declaration of Independence, and that it would not 
be there if it did not mean something, and we will now attach it to 
industrial that I spoke of yesterday when talking about the chores, 
so we will hitch them up and see how they will work together; get 
in, everybody, and see if Industrial-Equality won't pull you all. 
There, "I told you so," but I want to tell you a lot more about this 
team. You have heard of Political-equality? Yes? Well, they never 
pulled all the people just like this team does, they couldn't do it; bless 
you, they are only little fellows. Political is a good riding horse, fat 
; and sleek, but, dear me, the people can't all ride horsback, and that's 



BOYS AND GIRLS. 85 

about all he's good for now, and there was poor Equality people 
•did not seem to ever need him — I pitied him, for he never haid a 
chance to show what he was worth, a splendid frame, yes, but why? 
Yes, sir, it is a fact; you could count his ribs across the street until we 
began to feed him up to work with Industrial, and now look at him, a 
perfect match for Industrial; and don't they pull together though. 
Why, I don't wonder that the people have turned Political out to pas- 
ture; he is only a warhorse, anyhow; we hardly ever use him any more; 
■we will keep him, of course, but everybody rides behind Ind'ustry and 
Equality — they'd rather do it. Why, the whole people have dropped 
onto the combination, don't you see, and are wondering why we 
•dlidn't combine our own interests long ago, but I told them that civil- 
ization had not become sufficiently civilized until now. But I must 
not run away from the younger members of my class, the gentlemen 
and ladies of thirteen — about three or four million of them in the 
United States. It's funny, but did you ever notice how differently 
boys grow old from what girls do? At thirteen they are about the 
same age, but never after. A girl gets older much faster than a boy 
up to sixteen, at sixteen a girl is just old, but a boy at sixteen is just 
awkward, and he realizes it. A girl gets old rather regretfully now, 
but a boy, well a boy, if he could not get oIder,why, he would rather 
have been good and died young. He rushes out of his teens like a 
meteor or cyclone, and when he gets to be twenty-one he flaps his 
wings, metaphorically speaking, and looks around as if to say, "1 
told you so!" Why, everybody knows when a boy is twenty-one, 
but how few — how very few — ever know when a girl is twenty-one! 
And now, when women's votes are needed, and it seems fitting and 
-proper for them to vote, in industrial matters, at least, if it never was 
before, the saddest thing about it is that a girl to vote must plead 
guilty to being twenty-one years old. 

Whatever equality may mean, it cannot mean that a boy is equal 
'to a girl, or that a girl is equal to a boy, but listen, both should have 
equal privileges to develop to the highest possibilities of their differ- 
ent and respective spheres: hence both and all of both are entitled to 
■equal material spheres; and, mark you well, that truth follows as a mat- 
ter of course, that one girl under the Stars and Stripes is entitled to 
material support equal to that of any other girl, because she is, or 
will be, a woman, and not because she is or her parents are or hope 
to be wealthy; and, I repeat it, that it may touch the very soul of 
•of every American citizen, that one boy under the Stars and Stripes 
is equal to material support equal to that of any other boy, and be- 
cause he is, or will be, a man, a soldier, if you please, and not be- 
■cause he is or his parents are or hope to- be wealthy. It's not money, 
but blood that tells. 

Three thirteen-year-old girls of equal size in their glee agreed to 
run a race in the arena and set the time; a girl's foot-race called out 
everybody, and the amphitheatre was crowded. The young society^ 
"belle led into the forum, followed by that little maid-of-all-work 
and all-play, but Gertrude, the other dear child, could not be induced 
to step toi the front, conscious of the fact that if some of the audience 
-did not hiss at her clothing, they would make unkind remarks to each 
other concerning it so crushing to her sense of propriety, and then 
she remembered, "I never ran a foot-race. I hardly felt like running 
after being at work fourteen or fifteen hours. Papa works and 
Mamma works, and we children all work from the time we were — 
well, ever since I can remember." "Why, you must be rich, as all 
of you earn wages." Y-e-s, pretty rich, we live in a nice house be- 
liind the factory; we get it cheap, and then Mamma can take in wash- 



86 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

ing there to pay the rent, and Papa and my big brother get big 
wages, and if they can get work all the time and if there is no strike 
on can pay the butcher and the grocer. Yes, we trade at the first 
class corner grocery; Papa won't let Ned go after things 'cause Ned 
drinks a little, you know, and I and my two little sisters earn money 
enough to buy all our clothing — wish I could earn lots more and get 
some company clothes. I wouldn't mind running this race, but this 
is the best suit I have got, and if they don't want to see me at 
church I guess they won't here," but she was dragged into the arena. 
While this little talk was going on a kind lady who knew her was 
talking to Belle. 

I ""Mjy dear little miiss, you must take off that hat, loosen that 

belt a little, and change those high-heeled boots for ordinary shoes, 
here is a pair." 

"Not much; this hat is of the latest style and cost a hundred 
dollars. Mamma says it isn't- nice for girls to run anyhow, and 
if it wasn't for my hat I wouldn't run. I wear a very low-cut waist, 
you see, and I can take off my jacket, if you want me to, but those 
common shoes — humph, I never wore a pair, and so I never ran a 
Tface, either, but I have danced all night long many times, and I slept 
until noon today, so I think I can beat Oeirtie anyhow." 

"But how about May?" , 

"Oh, May — can't anybody beat May! She can't dance a mite,, 
but run! — why, I wish I could run like May, up hill and down. No, 
no, the race is between Gertie and I, for Gertie, she is so sensitive,. 
I don't know why — everybody knows she is poor; I should think 
she wouldn't mind it by this time. May is poor, too — oh, not so 
very poor, or so very rich — and she is — well May is ready for any- 
thing, and! everything is fun for May, isay I. Well, Ma says she is a 
tom-boy, and ain't proper. Hello! May, are you ready?" 

"Tom says I am always ready for a race. By the time he can 
count one, two, three, I have my bonnet ofif and away we go, around 
the block — it makes the people laugh sometimes to see us run, or 
sometimes Tom says, 'I can beat you across the meadow to where 
the cows are.' I say, 'No, you can't,' and away we go. I like to 
run Tom up hill; I can beat him uphill nearly every time. I tell 
him it's because mamma makes the waist of his trousers too tight." 

"Do you work any. May?" 

"No — yes — well, no; I don't call it work. I milk the five cows, 
while Tom takes care of the horses, and I plow sometimes all day, 
when Tom has something else to do. Papa is dead, you know." 

"Well, May, are you going to win?" 

"Well, if I don't I ought to! There is Belle, the best-hearted 
girl that ever livedL Oh, I do like her mamma and papa ever so 
much, too, but they wouldn't have her dressed as my matnma 
dressed me, for the world; and poor Gertie she is so sensitive. Belle 
wonders why, but I don't wonder a bit when I remember how she 
has to live now, and so discouraged-like about the future, too, and 
says, 'When will it ever be any better. May?' and then we both cry, 
and, well, I don't know what to say but I say, 'Let's run a race with 
Carle.' She brightens up a little, but says, 'No, its time for me 
to go to work;' I feel as thoiugh I would like to take both the girls 
one by each of my hands and pull them aroundl that ring, and then 
we would all come out together, don't you see, and be so happy." 

But the people are all in their seats, and calling, "Time!" 

The three girls, with such unequal chances all standing in a row, 
a man says, "One! Two! Three!" and away they go! May soon 
takes the lead reluctantly, as if she hated to leave them behind, but 
remembers it is her business now to run, and her jaunty little cap 



BOYS AND GIRLS. 87 

slips to the back of her head, her body coveredJ all over with mod- 
est clothing, but perfectly free from its restraint; her feet, shod with 
neat but ordinary shoes, carry her forward like the wind. The 
people shout, "See May run! just see her run!" Belle and Gertie in- 
tent only on beating each other (mind you, for there is a whole lot 
more here than a foot-race) are lost to view and neg- 
lected by the crowd. May makes the round. One has 
discovered that Belle and Gertie are still running 
(all have to run), but are only half-wiay around, and sets up the 
shout, "Catch them, May! catch them!" and everybody shouts, 
"^'Catch them, May! catch them!" With but a moment's hesitation, 
■and plenty of wind, May starts on her second round, almost with her 
former speed, and the crowd sets up the shout, "Just see her run!" 
and amid deafening cheers she overtakes them and takes each by 
the hand, and: pulls them along, too, and gently pushes them in front 
■of her over the goal, and as if by magic the hearts of the people 
melted by this act of magnanimity and tears of repentance flowed 
from the eyes of rich and poo.r alike, and shaking hands in token of 
a mutual pledge that they would never put another little impedi- 
ment in the way of industrial equality, thus forever bestowing all 
needed material support to the poor, and taking the unbearable bur- 
den of private wealth, as entirely useless as the rich girl's mammoth 
hundred-dollar hat in a foot race, or as natural as the poor girl's 
sensitiveness, because of her poverty in not being able to get one as 
costly. Wasn't May's jaunty cap sweet? Yes, and the heart that 
directed the head that wore it. She is the type of girls the Com- 
bine age will produce and would have madte out of tne other two. 

Do not my older readers see clearly that incorporation has in 
it the willing ability to help forward) both the rich and the poor 
alike. There were a few boys and girls that were not at the race, so 
J continue, but on a little different line, about equality. I remem- 
ber that some boys farther up in their teens think about getting 
married, and as I never heard of a boy marrying another boy I 
'ccnclude it is not worth while to argue that a boy is equal to a 
girl. Then I think of the long tedious and seemingly exasperating 
courtships. No objections anywhere, but yet something lacking, 
•and I hasten to the rescue with this bright idea that equality means 
that a woman should have the equal right to "pop the question." I 
take it that this right is just what the woiman wants, the privilege to 
do and put it to a vote. But imagine my surprise — my hundred boys 
vote for it to a man, but my hundred! and five girls vote against it 
"to a woman. I whisper to my oldl wife, "That's not it"; she whispers 
back, "I told you so." I try again and with some show of eloquence 
say, "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are 
created equal" — I borrowed that from Thomas Jefiferson, who wrote 
"the Declaration of Independence but if I can pass it ofif as original, 
why not? Well, I might do so now, but when Industrial Equality 
gently hovers its protecting wings over all the children alilce, until 
they become mature men and women physically, I shall not be able 
to take advantage of their ignorance then as now, about some of 
the most commonplace items of history, physics, logic, etc. The 
schools will know no rich to spoil or poor to despise. For what's 
the use for the rich now to insist on or give their children of for- 
tune, so-called, an education, which the children do not expect to 
■ever need, or their parents expect them to ever use; or, on the 
other hand, for the poor to sacrifice every remaining comfort of tht 
"home, such as it is, either rented or taxed, to educate their boy or 
girl, and in the end to turn them into life at business age, an edu- 
•cated pauper and without a job? Let the American common sense 



88 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

and common justice say, "Shame on such equality!" Let no man 
think he has silenced me by saying, "Our people are the best edu- 
cated people of any in the world." True, sir, to the letter, but for 
your personal shamie, don't mention it again, until you, sir, change 
the palm of your hand upward to both the surfeited rich and the 
disheartened poor children of the nation whom you have only pre- 
tended to- love, be you Jew or Gentile, rich or poor. Kindly the 
time has come now, if never before, when your industrial interest 
is my industrial interest, and vice versa, and Progress, call it Cbris- 
tian or infidel, as you prefer, is up to and now opening out and into 
a combine of all productive property, operated for the purely mutual 
benefit of all the people. Demand it! Accept it Enjoy it! 

Talk about a standing army as a sure guarantee of peace. Let 
it be so. Then every man is born and bred a soldier, and every 
woman, if need be. I have shown elsewhere that with our long- 
range guns, etc., women have eyes and nerves, and can be as expert 
with a' needle gun as with her cambric needle. What nation will 
then dare invade our shores? In such union there is power; there is 
safety, and national safety, both from without and from within. In- 
dustrial equality will amalgamate the hearts and engage and enter- 
tain the minds and give our people a healthful miilitary bearing in 
their work for material support, so that the nation in a day can 
change its army of willing workers for an army of willing soldiers,. 
already well drilled. 

Another view: Paupers now too poor to care whether they have 
any government at all, on the one hand, and on the other, the rich 
too high and lifted up to obey the law, but at the same time fearing 
the pauper, as he well may, any other nations looking on, seeing a 
rich but competitive or quarreling people, strikes and! lockouts ev- 
erywhere, not only fighting one another in business matters, but 
also in bitter class hatred, some of which might see in war nothing 
but an opportunity for sweet revenge or spoils, on account of in- 
juries done and suffered — then almost any nation could defeat us, 
and our very bulk would the more certainly work our sure destruc- 
tion. One who knows has said, "Let him that thinketh he standeth 
take heed lest he fall." Why, sir, boys and girls hardly know that 
they have a government now, it is so far away and unreal to them; 
it does not seem to touch them anywhere; liberty is a kind of a 
ghost. Patriotism is a kind of phantom. Political Equality an un- 
meaning phrase. Why, sir, nobody, foreign or domestic, is disputing 
our political liberty; then why brag about it so much? Why not 
take it for granted, and all right, and as we are bigger than any 
nation on earth, that practically settles the mtatter of political equal- 
ity, we can't get any more of it can we? and so what are we doing 
now anyway? Nothing. Wake up and listen. Industrial Equality, 
tKe same people, but acting in their co-operate capacity, can lift up- 
the poor into homes and bring government very close to every boy 
and girl, a government that is so real as to stand close behind a com- 
bine that gives every father and able-bodied adult brother and sister 
honest employment, and guarantees dividends with which to supply 
the necessities and luxuries of life; a government that gives every 
family a home — not only a homestead as now, but a real home 
which touches them on every side and makes them feel warm and 
comfortable. Government then will not be a far-ofif and mysterious 
will-o'-the-wisp, but as real as the mother that rocked them to sleep 
in biabyhood, and all will intuitively work for it, — yes, fight for it 
if need be, as you would do or would have done for her. 

Boys and girls in their teens are both loving and lovable. 
Character building carried on in this rational line, as begun in the- 



BOYS AND GIELS 89 

Tiome may and should continue on and up and) into and through busi- 
ness life to mature old age, and when the nation makes an honest ef- 
fort to afford the young adult men and women the like chances ol 
their father's and mother's family for character building; yes, and 
more, sets the example to the famiily, then the nation, like the fam- 
ily will become dear to the people. Further, if a young couple 
knew for a certainity, as they will know as a result of Industrial 
Equality, that when they arrive at proper pairing age, they will have 
a home of their very own assigned them by the combine as their in- 
herent right, as a man and a woman, as well as an economic measure 
on the part of the combine (as I have shown elsewhere), tbenwe may 
expect virtue and character in the young man as in the young 
woman he expects to marry. Let me refer to a few existing difficul- 
ties that will cease when the barriers of private wealth are "burned 
away." 

Case No. i. A young mian loves a young woman, and she loves 
'him. She is rich, he is poor. Each is worthy of the other, and they 
both know it. She may sincerely wish she was not rich, and did not 
belong to her set, but by the twitting of her set, and the objections 
of her parents, she says a reluctant "No," and not only one light goes 
out, but two: The one to aimless living, perhaps, the other further 
along to enter a partnership with a man of her set, both having a 
divorce in view — economics robbed of the good offices and aid of 
a faithful man and wife, to say nothing of the morals involved. 

Case No 2. A wealthy young man, boasting in the proper spirit 
of his young manhood, that he will marry whom he pleases, with only 
her consent. He sees a young lady that he thinks is perfect, but his 
set get to hear of it. They say, "It will never do, she hasn't got a 
dollar in the world, while he — yes, and he can marry rich and have a 
fortune," and so they join to ridicule his choice or persuade or 
laugh him out of his only love, and he soon enters into a partnership 
with an heiress, and ishe, to cover the apparant shame of becoming 
an old maid, marries too, becomes an obscure household drudge, 
because her only love is not in her home. 

Case No. 3. Is entitled to our greatest respect. A young man 
or young woman, with stoic determination, after having thought out 
the family life in its fight for bread and a homie little more than a 
farce under existing circumstances, owing to inequalities of property, 
resolves to live virtuous and single. Such single men are heroes 
and such single women are heroines, for it is as natural for young 
mien and women to pair off at marriageable age as it is for birds, 
and this accursed private wealth or wealth in private hands to be 
used, or misused .rather, for private ends, sets up a prohibitory bar- 
rier, and we merciless cowards that we are, laugh about it, and call 
it the vagaries of love. 

Case No. 4. Industrial Equality will give definiteness to educa- 
tion. Some boys and girls have in mind what they would like to 
be or do as a life pursuit. As I have said, industry is as natural as 
sleep until we are educated out of that idea of it. Every rich child 
intuitively wants tO' do something industrial, but forces have con- 
spired together to frustrsrte or foil his or her industrial ambition, 
at a very early age, soimetimes instead of, as it should be to encour- 
age the child's aspirations and keep it in line, lending it every 
assistance possible, thus keeping it in love with some definite work. 
It rather destroys, and by a smattering of this, that and the other 
is not proficient in anything. Well, the schools are not to. blame. 
I am not blaming them, for they practically say, "Suppose we do 
specialize, there is no telling that the boy or girl can use the 
specialty, so as all boys .-ind giris must take just what they can get 



ftB 



90 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

to do, when they go out -^f school, it is better to give them a smat- 
tering of many things." That's true, yet it is a disgraceful reflection 
upon competitive business methods that we pay our hard-earned 
money and give our children's time through school life, and then 
kick them out to do anything they can catch. But little better than 
this do the rich do for their children; they, by their wealth and 
pride, decide to make a preacher, or lawyer, or doctor, out of a 
born mechanic, and spoil both. Many born professional men or 
artisans first see the light in hovels, and must by the inequality of 
wealth spend a life following the plow or carrying the hod). Why 
are we so wilfully cruel to our own children and all children? Our 
children as a rule go out into life to drift aimlesslv through it all, 
because of lack of a little management, but that is impossible in and 
under competitive business methods, and you that read these lines 
know it, and possible only in our industrial combine. As we have 
but one life to live, is it not a pity to squander it thus. 

Case No. 5. Industrial Equality presupposes that young men 
and young women can do the world's work, when that work is done 
methodically and co-operatively, and that without loss from compe- 
tfllon or Busines'S fighting, or when one thing is planned out for the 
purpose of supplementing or fitting into the other, this planning 
will enlist the best thought of all and especially the best thinkers, 
and this life of satisfying thought will be rapture when compared 
with the present day practice of law. of medicine, teaching, me- 
chanics, farming, horticulture, agriculture, etc.. not one of which can 
its votaries make satisfactory and practical because of remorseless 
competition. I say presupposes that young men and women can do 
the world's work without the help of the aged, or infirm, or children 
under 21, though young men and women yet in their teens will do 
preparatory work, probably in most cases equal to oir in excess ot 
their own support, and the public school generally will be definitely 
preparatory and self-supporting in many cases, probably industrial 
and co-operative schools. 

Boys and girls, you are not expected to vote until you are 21, 
but please do not think for one little moment that any one of you 
that reads or hears these lines, no matter how young you are, cannot 
he'lp to hasten industrial equality. You may not be able to understand' 
it all the way through, but you can understand, that it is doing as 
you would be done by in all industrial business relations in life. This 
is the best way to do for you and of course it is best for the one 
that you do a kind act to or for. We don't do it now, and our bad 
and silly business method of competition we want to swap off for 
co-operation, and establish a right business principle, which is com- 
bination of all business interests. 

You see, being all thus interested together, we cannot do a-ny 
industry or business an inquiry, for if we do, we injure ourselves, 
and having this sound business principle as a real basis or starting- 
point, we can work out a home for you, yes for you, the very identi- 
cal little boy or girl that is listening so intently to these lines — yes, 
a home for you, and that as being the very best piece of business this 
nation ever did for itself, so that your papa and mamma, and big 
brother or sister may have a chance to take care of you at the very 
least possible expense to them, as well as to the higher business ad- 
vantage of all. So, many good and beautiful things radiate out from 
the home that you and your papa and mamma will think of and' talk 
about, but the combine, as we will now call it for short, does not only 
ask the government to set you off a home of your very own, as its 
first and most paying piece of business in the interest of all, but it 



BOYS AND GIRLS. 91 

is co-operation personified in all the different departments of work, 
in the support of that home, so that all the workers will work for 
instead of against each other ts so many wockers do now, and you 
will have so much better methods of study arranged) for you, as 
agricultural schools, sewing schools, in fact nearly all schools will 
either be practically industrial schools or schools leading up to in- 
dustrial or technical schools. This class of schools does a great deal 
of good' now, but so frequently when a boy or girl has learned all 
that they can teach, and is ready to go out into the practical applica- 
tion of what he or she has spent these precious years of young life 
in learning, he or she finds that there is no place, actually no place, 
to apply the knowledge gained — for there has been no concert of 
action on the part of industry or bu'siness to reach down andi kindly 
connect itself with the school, nor has business made any suggestions 
to the schools as to what and how they should teach, and prepare, so 
that study and an education would not be thrown away, but rather 
leading on, up to be a paying investment to you and to the society. 
This is, in other words, establishing a new center from which business 
would radiate, do good to others and then risk the result; and not, 
as wc have been trying to do all along through these many weary 
years, to miake people good and bright as we would' a stove by 
blacking it on the outside, but rather by building a fire in it, and let- 
ting it get bright with its own fervent heat. It may shine red 
instead of black, but it will not be shining by reflected light, but by 
its ©wn light, and then it won't be a black dummy as now, but it will 
shine from heat of its own. It will not only be ornamental but 
useful. We have been doing business competitively, most of us, 
because we have had to do so or starve. What consummate folly! 
Let us quit fighting, only continue the "work," as was decreed in the 
Garden of Eden, and labor will feed, clothe and educate us, as surely 
as God said "Let there be light." 

We have been building a great bonfire, as it were, at the entrance 
of a cave scooped out on the mountain side, like a great amphithea- 
tre, and simply for the purpose of lighting up the cave: now change 
the purpose of the fire to cooking food and keeping you warm. 
Never mind about the light (the political or self-government). As 
you look around you for the best place to build the fire fox this 
new purpose, you will find it in the midst of the cave, and, wonderful I 
the cave is lighted' up by the same fire, and far more perfectly than 
from the outside bonfire (competition), which you don't need at all 
now; so pile on the fuel, and live 'by its prepared food and warmth, 
and also in the brightness of its light. 

We are here in life, as we all mu'st admit for the one purpose, 
and that human happiness. This is the re_al problem of human life; 
we have given it the lively chase and have caught it. The people's 
industrial combine, let us get together and stand together, both 
Jew and Gentile, for this new business center, and our business will 
hold or sustain us, instead of fightiu'g, as now, to hold or sustain our- 
selves. 

I must not continue my letter until you get sleepy, but I do want 
to refer to a real case in point. A young woman came into a great 
mill at lunch time, to tell the thousand girls employed, about the 
Young Woman's Christian Association, and very properly began by 
asking, "What shall I say to you girls?" 

One of them said "Whatever you do, don't you tell us to be 
good." Another said: "Naw, don't give us a tract." Another said': 
"And don't you give us Bible verses." Another reprovingly said to 
the girls: "Stop, don't you know how to treat company? Say, please, 
mla'am, tell us 'bout girls who can go to school." Another said: 



92 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

"An' them that can stay at home." And as the young woman spoke 
to them about school life, one spoke out: "You make all that up 
'bout girls that can go to school." Another said, "And don't have 
to think a single thing 'bout the money." 

Do you wonder that these millions of girls and boys tell us to 
our faces of our inconsistency in lauding our free school system, 
and yet make it impossible for them to attend school! Why, sir. 
we fight them; they fight back — we fight everybody and everybody 
fights us , and we call it business, competitive business. I would not 
miminize the tender-hearted efforts of the Y. W. C. A. to help, but 
I would rather give them a chance. These young women are trying 
to carry a load that ought to make men blush to see, — aye. young 
men, combine, and thus gallantly relieve them without adding 9 
featherweight, — yea, rather and at the same time even decimate your 
own lead, too, and within the scope of the surplus energy of those 
whoise privilege it will be to do the world's work, now that "work" 
has become practically a social office. 

One word more to the young women in their teens, and older. 
History tells us of a time when the military dominated the world. 
Men were then the soldiers. The barbarous cry of these oruel men 
was, "To the victor belongs the spoil." The very same idea runs 
through competitive business tod'ay, listen, don't you hear it? only 
more genteel, but none the less cruel and harsh to the finer semsi- 
bilities of our owni people. I speak of this, here to impress the fact 
upon your minds and hearts that as each and every one of you ex- 
pects to live with some one of these young men, it behooves you to 
prevent the young men from acquiring that overbearing, barbarous 
brutal habit, crushing every tender isentiment and meek appeal of his 
victims of business, foir, rest assured, men cruel to other men will 
be cruel to you. A time has now come in the progress of Christian 
civilization that love power is available; use it practically, and I beg 
of you, let this power shine out so practically that it may be followed 
and thus guarantee continued love and sweetness in your home life 
as the home maker. 

Accepting the story of adventure of the children of Israel as 
sacred history, let us learn a lesson from their failure and success. 
We came as near to the industrial promised land, at the time of out 
American independence, as they did on their first approach via 
Kadish Barnea, but they, as we. were frightened back by giants. 
They estimated a Canaanite as just equal to an Israelite, and we esti- 
mated an American freeman, as we had become, just equal to an 
European suhjx'ct, as we had been. Mark the difference as we see 
it now ZV'C rule they obey. Napoleon asked one of his marshals how 
many soldiers? He was promptly answered so many. "Wrong, 
sir, put me down ten thousand." Aye, Napoleon, the commanider, 
was worth ten thousand privates to the French army on the battle- 
field. So let your real worth get hold of yoti as an American 
citizen. Stand up straight for your every right, industrial as well as 
political, and if the old monarchial version of industrial liberty was 
to get all, if you could, and turn all your brothers and' sisters out 
to starve, then let us change that nefarious version to that implied 
by a republic, not only free but equal, not only politically but indus- 
trially. Why should it be found necessary to say, after our country 
is a hundred and twenty-five years old, that this nation should be 
independent of any nation on earth, in its currency, gold silver, one 
both, or neither? Why? Because we have been compromising with 
the Canaanites of Europe and worshipping their idols, their gods, 
their monarchical way of business. The Israelites weakened; so did 
we, and they wandered around aimlessly for forty years on account of 



BOYS AND GIRLS. 93~ 

it, and)' finally rounded up to make another effort to get into their 
rightful possessions; but this time a river between, some more gritty- 
spies were sent out, came back and reported that giants still pos- 
sessed the land; but mark a difference in two important particulars- 
one IS, the Israelites were courageous; this time, and it was the 
Lanaanites who had an attack of heart failure. But how could the 
Israelites get at them— a river, a great big river. Its no use to talk, 
some say, we can't cross it (we can't combine, why we have no 
money, nothing to combine). Well, Joshua said there is nothing like 
trying. I think he remind'ed them in some way that they were 
Israeiites, and by this forty years of icducation, I think they began to- 
kel in their hearts what being an Israelite in that day really meant.. 
(Do you take in all that American citizen now means, or do you go 
tagging along like a labor union begging for wages and a job)? 
Audacious Joshua, did you say? Well, they went right on. What? 
Yes, the river divided, the Canaanites found their holes and the 
Israelites hadi possession. See? 

So much foir being sure you're right and going aheadL-"Go thoir 
and db likewise." Israel had rights; so have Americans. Israel must 
needs make an honest effort. Israel's men, women and children 
marched together. America's men, women and children must needs 
move together. Israel gained homes. America will gain homes. 
Israel thus perpetuated the family. America must and will thus be 
enabled to perpetuate the family. Observe that to the extent that 
Israel paid attention to the counsel of the Canaanites. They failed. 
What consummate folly then for Americans, who do and of a right 
ought to leadl the whole w^ide world, to hesitate and ask the Canaan- 
ites of Europe about the propriety of changing the old monarchial 
system of industry, iso as to have an industrial system to fit our own 
Republic. 

Very great care may well be taken in Europe to educate princes 
and princesses, for they are to govern. They are to be trusted, thor- • 
oughly trusted. Hear me. We in America are the princes and prin- 
cesses; we are to govern, we are to be as thoroughly trusted, we, 
like the royal blood, are placed on honor. Is it not pertinent, then, 
that if we are the royal blood of America and placed on honor, that 
we establish here and now a system that will give us a royal train- 
ing, a royal recognition, a royal bearing, thoroughly educated! and 
absolutely trusted? While we are dealing in comparisons, let us 
carry it still farther; all the children of the nobility of Europe are 
not wise— did you hear me?— neither are all the children of America; 
then the greater care is needful to the unwise of both, so I plead the 
cause of my young friend's of America, who most need a friend and 
insist that they, as well as the wise ones, must have the same careful 
training as the ruling families of Europe, because they have like 
ruling responsibility placed upon them. It is true always that the 
balance of sympathy must go with the governing power (stick a pin 
here), else they must lose control; so here the people, being the 
governing power, must have the sympathy and consideration dlue 
them as the governing power, else our Republic must lose control 
(read that sentence again), so it is not a matter of indifference 
whether we treat our electors equally or not, but a far-reaching and 
profound matter of necessity vital to the genius of our form of gov- 
ernment, we must have an industrial system adapted to a Republic. 
Then a republic will prove to be the strongest form of govern- 
ment possible to the human race. 

Permit me to remind you compassionately that many of thoise 
who are causing society the most trouble now, be they rich or poor, 
who are the most ungovernable, were badly started. They were not 



94 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

boirn or reared in the sweetness of a home of just a plenty, so if 
we are now called upon to really suffer, we should suffer meekly until 
we have put forth an honest and intelligent effort to give them a fair 
chance now. Even an infidlel longs for a time when the companion- 
ship of men and women, uncontaminated by the meanness of com- 
petitive business or irritated by rasping anxiety and goneness of 
soul, making life a burden and death, a vexatious uncertainty. So, 
why, in any view of the case, is it not better for all to try to make 
this world as good as we can. 

My young friends. I want to show you two companion 
pictures before you go. I iraise the throw; you first see 
the boy, of course, then a dog, a lion, a horse, a bear, a hog, a mule, 
etc. Your loive prevents you from realizing that the boy is a brute 
(he may be much more or yet little more than a brute). A look nt 
supreme satisfaction is in his face as if to say this is good enough 
for me; I am going to camp right bere. with my associates, and we 
leave him just stooping to pick up a sword on which we read two 
words: Selfishness. Competition: below the picture, the name, "Sel- 
fish instinct as a principle; Competition as a method of action." 
Now take a look at the companion oicture; we instinctively see the 
human first, but am old, weary, tottering man. with the same sword 
and drawn so high that it seems to be coming down on his own 
neck, and we feel as though we must spring to his rescue. As we 
take in more calmly the situation, we see that the food isi all behind 
him. The other brutes are at bay in front of him. but looking, oh, 
so wistfully at the food they dare not touch. The faithful dop" 
sitting on his haunches no longer looks with kindling eye into those 
of hiis master's, but as he is dlying of hunger, looks beyond at the 
food. The willing horse, no longer able for service, is looking nt 
the food; the hog, content with anything, can get nothing; even the 
lion, with his head between his paws, is subdued by the greater 
fierceness of the old man. We know that the whole scene is a repre- 
sentation — aye, a reflection, on the competitive human animal, and 
intimating our treatment of each other, and as we turn away in dis- 
gust, we read below the "Finale of Selfishness as a principle of busi- 
ness; Competition as a methodi of business." I see you are deter- 
mined to go so I hasten to tell you that the other paiir are en- 
trancing and so hope to prevail on you to stay a moment longer. I 
pull asid'C the throw. The boy now has his sword in hand, but his 
eye is not on the sword, but on a distant light, and he seems about to 
start to it. His dumb associates are still about him in inquisitive 
confusion. Now your eye catches the title below, and you read, 
"Self-interest as a principle of business" and "Combination as a 
method of business." Mark the difference in the name. It is all a 
pleasant picture, but the title is most startling, and' we cling to it 
with a real fascination, unmindful that it has a companion which is 
yet more attractive. As we turn toi it we mark that the boy has now 
left the brutes, is no longer one of them, and evidently is bound by 
elastic step for the light. Love lights up his^ ever handsome face, 
and he is life personified; but still, as if by force of habit, he carries 
his drawn sword unwittingly, and with its inscription in plain view — 
Selfishness — Competition. Halt, a friendly sentinel seems to say, as 
he reaches out for the sword as if to intimate, you will not need 
either the weapon or its motto after you step over this line, this 
beat. We have been too absorbed with the boy to notice that he 
has exchanged associates, a man^ this sentinel, who looks every inch 
a soldier; a satisfied smile lights up his genial countenance as he 
welcomes the boy. Across the green is a rainbow-like arch; on its 
periphery we spell out the name of apparently a new inheritance, a 



BOYS AND GIRLS. 95 

new country — "Christianized Civilization." Scintillating in the center, 
beautiful and bright, a single word, "Trust." We pause; it means 
everything to us. The sun of industrial system, trust! With rapture 
we study this picture and as it grows on us, a train of cars here, and 
a steamiship there, farms and factories and waterfalls and villages, 
with church steeples and cottages everywhere. The scene does not 
need to be labeled, but we instinctively say,"American homesforall," 
You feast until I am compelled to bid you a significant good-night, 
and you say, "Just one more look," and you get a thought that burna 
into your very soul, as you read below the cause of it all, "See what 
Self-interest, ais a principle of business, and Combination, as a 
method of business, hath wrought." 




What Effect will ludustrial Equality Have 
Upou Parties ? 

To say that it will not affect them at all would be incorrect, be- 
•cause parties, as we know them, are so sensitive in their nature as to 
lie affected by very small things — as by petty jealousies, envy, or the 
color of the of skin, nationality, religion, etc., but the Industrial 
Combine is purely an industrial business matter, and as it concerns all 
the people cannot possibly be a part or party measure, yet this very 
fact may affect existing parties. Do not confuse politics and par- 
ties; parties come and go; politics remain; a party man may only be 
a trickster or a schemer, but a statesman is a man who honestly tries 
to manage proper political affairs for the good of the governed, so as 
to enable the people, all of the people, citizens, not alone a part or 
party or them to get the maximum of political happiness, not neces- 
sarily a prodticer, but the State should work hand in glove with the 
producer. Partieis exist frequently to put their leaders in office, 
.against which statesmen sometimes have no show. If they were 
honorary, if there was no money in it, then men would not need to 
seek office, but for the political good that they could give the people, 
rather than for a living or what money they could make out of it. 
Men can do good without being paid for it. A party is simply a high- 
way to an office and an office is so much money. The Combine will 
supply all our physical wants from another source, and insures us and 
ours a subsistence. It will be its pure business then to inquire mto 
tariff (as it should be, as Politics has little to do with it; it is 
rather industrial), aridi decide it entirely by its effect upon the Com- 
Mne — the people as a whole, in their co-operative capacity — rather 
.■than as now, upon some isolated factory or factories. So the ques- 
:tion of Free Trade will pass from a party to^ the whole, and from 
politics into business or industry, as all are in the Combine. Then 
all questions, such as the money and immigration questions, Chi- 
na's exclusion act, commerce, etc., will be settled in the interest of 
"the Combine, on purely business principles, hence may or may not 
need! parties at all; but as we can give the party man, who now 
works it for a living, some more agreeable job( and we easily can, 
for there is not one in a hundred of them that likes it), why, he will 
not object. There are lots of agreeable things to do in the Combine 
aside from sawing wood and peddling tin ware; besides such jobs 
as these will all be taken before he fairly gets his eyes open; but 
let him select just what he would like to do' — aye, perhaps what he 
has always longed to do — then a second and perhaps a third choice, 
and report to the superintendent; and then, with a non-taxable 
home and a patent for it direct from the political government, he 
can feel easy, a state of mind foreign to any and all office-seekers, 
for their unrest is prdverbial. To be plain, industry is sick and tired 
of playing second fiddle to politics. It recognizes its relationship by 
accepting in goo;d) faith its incorporation papers. After that politics 
must let industry alone. 



PARTIES. 97 

I must not forget to be considerate to the sensitiveness of 
-partisans. Industry can have no use for parties. I am quite ready 
to defer to expert thinkers, real statesmen, as to the needls of poH- 
tics when separted from industry, only requiring that they have 
the motive of self-interest. (You and I can trust men in anything 
when they adopt self-interest as a motive, and not till then). If good 
and competent men decide that any matter entirely political in char- 
acter, can be better manipulated through a distinctly political partv, 
so be it, but as I write I remember how parties, mixing up with 
industry, finally got us into the war of the rebellion, a»xd then 'slunk 
Bway and left loyal men regardless of party to fight it out. I think 
that parties may do the same again, for to stir up strife seems to be 
about all they have been competent to do. A political party has no 
right to mix up with an industrial matter. 

The evidences that we could get along without parties in politics 
is seen in the fact that we did get along without them for many years, 
•at the beginning of our republic; just how it can now be good for 
us to chew the rag like a lot of spoiled children, and threaten and 
lie about each other, and then after election implicitly say, "Oh, I 
didn't mean anything by it," is a bit hard for a self-respecting man 
to comprehend; in fact. I don't wonder that multiplied thousands 
of men abominate parties and wonder if there is any other way. 
America is the larger family. Is a family row a good thing for a 
family? Hardly. "A house divided against itself cannot stand." 
Ours came nigh going down in that great rebellion. You cannot 
blame an old soldlier for remembering that, had it not been for the 
bad blood of political parties, we could have paid for every slave 
with the money that the rebellion cost and had money left to have 
bought a home for every slave set free. Shall we let our foolish 
children get us into another war now to liberate the wage slavey, 
which must be liberated, both white and black, or shall we, as 
guardians '"stop the racket" by adjusting matters in time? Parties 
are not needed even in politics; we think they belong to a departed 
age, for they have the same old battle cry. "To the victor belong 
the spoils." But if there can be no spoils it may be different. ■ 

We cannot believe that political parties are in harmony with 
the genius of sielf-government at all but regret, most of all, the 
mistake that so very many good men are making, i. e., expecting 
that industrial relief is to come' through some poHtical party, either 
new or old; it is misplaced confidence, my friends. My conclusions 
are that the very reverse has been true, and we believe forever will 
be true. Political parties but serve to aggravate. They are a throw- 
ing-down of the gauntlet, a banter for a fight, andi very frequently 
nothing but a preponderance of self-interest prevents it. Parties are 
the bane of politics, much as competition is the bane of industry. 
Vote for measures and men as the exponents of these measures, as 
we did, as a nation in the days of Washington, we started right in 
this matter, but an enemy sowed tares among us. The sooner we 
begin voting for a man because he is a competent man, and not 
because he is a partisan, the better for him and us. 

But I will not presume to give a disquisition on parties. Why 
should I. when it is in the very nature of the Industrial Combine 
that parties are irrelevant and not needed at all. If now, in our 
initial movement toward industrial equality, if it be taken up by any 
one of the parties, whether new or old, would surely be antagonized 
by the others. Besides, the rank and file of all parties are in favor 
of a home and a job assured to all the people. 

Every Combine looks to the government 'for its charter (ob- 
serve that the government is not the charter or the charter the 
.government), and so we will of course; and parties are now as a 



98 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

fact, in close connection with the government, and it has done and 
is doing much of its work through parties. So we need and must 
have their friendship, and must not offend! them. But there is a 
right way, as I have tried to elucidate, in the plan of work. I am 
impressed that deep thoughtfulness is needful here and now, so will 
include in thisi posf&cript note the words of our serious President in 
his memorable speech at Gettysburg, after reviewing the past great 
war. Mr. Lincoln said: "It is rather for us here to be dedicated to 
the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead 
we take increased devotion to the cause for which they gave the 
last full measure of devotion, that we here highly resolved that these 
dead shall not have died in vain, that thiis nation under God shall 
have a new birth and that government of the people, by the people, 
for the people, sihall not perish from the earth." Let us stop; and 
with uncovered heads as if in his presence ask ourselves this serious 
question. Whither are we now dtrifting? What have the people got 
to say when wealth, through a political party, sends out her man- 
dates? Are we even now a government of, for and by the people? 
I think we are lin a sympathetic mood and willing to be fair; so 
let us say to politics, "Hands off," andi let the captains of industry 
manage industrial affairs. The people in their co-operate capacity 
are abundantly able to take care of themselves." 




Doctors. 

An injustice done to one is the real concern of all. How will 
industrial equality affect the medical profession? Probably the 
least from the material point of view, of any class in society, yet to 
the extent it does affect them, I think it will be most agreeable. 

In a peculiar sense their thought and work is outside of 
finance. The question of the business world, "Will it pay?" they 
seldom ask or coinsidler; they usually pursue their studies and in- 
vestigations from scientific philanthropic or benevolent motives, 
quite apart from the financial. True, many are competent financiers, 
and take delight in it, but I think that usually necessity, rather than 
pleasure, impels them to make their collections, and they prefer to 
give themselves entirely to the good offices of their profession and 
let others plan for their material support. But if it should become 
an enforced necessity it would be a kind of skeleton in the closet, 
diverting them away from the practice of their professio'n. It is a 
irestless feeling that they must make a living for themselves and 
families as well as to attend to the minutia of their profession and 
"because of this a mental debate begins. The profession says, Keep 
people well if possible and cure them as soon as possible if sick. 
Finance says, Let as many people get sick as possible and stay sick 
as long as possible. This looks like an enforced relationship, a 
kind of marriage under protest, a condescension of the sublime to 
the ridiculous. The facts are, the financial ghost takes much of the 
pleasure out of the profession. Is there no way for a doctor to 
give himself up to the practice of his profession, or for a lawyer to 
apply his undivided attention to matters touching his profession, 
or 'for a clergyman to devote himtself to society, to uplift, to soothe, 
to assure? Society supports all these men now, so it would assurne 
no additional burden if it undertook their support as a part of its 
own concern, which it could do proficiently and far more economi- 
cally for itself in its financial views, as well as with untoJdi advan- 
tage to the well-being, physically, morally and spiritually, of all 
those who look to these professions for- help in time of tleed. 'The 
facts are these, professions have usually neglected the financial, to 
their own great loss, as well as the professional loss to society. 
Financiers have shown themselves willing to attend to finances and 
have done so to perfection, but, alas! entirely for their own indi- 
vidual profit, and a corresponding great loss to the profession in 
money and to the people in service. The desire to be relieved from 
attending to finances is not at all new to the profession, so my 
remedy is not to be counted among the long list of new remedies — 
only the application of what we really have in our possession to the 
affairs of industry. To be pointed and clear, I will explain in paren- 
thesis that our theory is, that industry must become separate and 
apart from politics. It must stand distinctly by itself on its own 
pedestal. Our fathers were careful that there be no mixing of 
<^hurch and State and they were right. Now we have as distinctly 
•come to the parting of the way and must declare from this time on 



LoiC. 



100 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

that there be no mixing of industry and State. Our practice, then, 
will necessarily demand a head and so industry, including both cap- 
ital and' labor, must rationally come under *me management, and we 
have the Industrial Combine. That settles it, and without humil- 
iating anybody. A man is not likely to strike himself or lock him- 
self out. You call to mind that a corporation is individual in its- 
character. God asked Moses a significant question. Moses had 
been floundering around to get out of duty. The question to him 
was, "What is that in thine hand?" (Exodus iv: 2). The teaching 
was and is the using of what is in hand, i. e., the corporation here 
and now. 

We believe the medical profession, had they the power, would 
give a home or find a home for every one, and that particularly in 
the interest of public health. They would prescribe healthy work,, 
not only as the best kind of exercise, but as a sure relief from, 
mental depression — the best mental stimulus of giving definite sup- 
port and maintenance to the home. 

People are the most likely to keep well who have a definite- 
something to live for. The mental stimulus of a home and its 
maintenance is invaluable to the public health. Then a clear, 
definite, encouraging, well-established and positively assured way 
of making a living is quite on an equality as a guaranty of healthful- 
ness to a positive and comfortable home. Every doctor appreciates- 
the value of restfulness for health, as a contented mind is a continual 
feast. The reverse, a disconcerted mind may well be considered in 
its effects on the general health, in the light of a continual fast. 
There is present a great unrest, as of isome impending disaster. We 
all feel it and hear it. If one is a homeless wanderer, he becomes 
an easy prey of epidemics; if out of a job and sick at heart, the body- 
soon sickens in sympathy, and also, if depending on keeping a job 
for his or her daily bread. These not only trouble the brain during 
the waking hours, making us as its victims less ef^cient, but dis- 
turb the appetite and digestion and the proper assimilation of 
fod. Not so, having a job and a home, the doctor is called in only 
to help eat the Thanksgiving turkey and the Christmas goose, and 
all laugh and grow fat. Neither doctor nor patient is concerned 
.a'bout bad debts, for there cannot, in the very nature of things, be 
any debts seriously bad, and no heart-sickening concern about what 
we shall eat or wherewithal shall we be clothed — that's the superin- 
tendent's business to see about that and he is perfectly free and 
easy, and as a part of the great economic combine his duties are 
completely under his control. Dividends are declared in lieu of 
fees, salaries, or wages, and in cash or its equivalent, sufficient to- 
supply every need, so that it remains the doctor's entire business to 
attend to matters pertaining to his profession, as well as the law- 
yer's business to practice law and the minister's business to preach 
the gospel, at the same time feeling assured that both he and his 
church can practice what he preaches. The statesman can, unpreju- 
diced by finances, think out matters of statecraft suitable to a 
Christian nation. The mechanic can put his enthusiasm into the 
perfect adjustment of the machine he operates. The farmer can 
plow the field, plant the seed, cultivate, reap and gather into barms, 
intent on doing his whole duty, but assured of a certainty of returns, 
and dividends, and not possible losses, that sometimes makes his 
own heart and those of his family die within them, but cheered by 
the fact that somewhere, crops are alWays good; it ni,ay be here this 
year and there next year, but his returning wants are continuous 
and must be and are uniquely met by his dividends and his divi- 
dends depend entirely on honest labor and not on the crops. The 
combine has great ability to distribute, by railroad, the crops of 



DOCTORS. 101' 

California with Oregon, or Ohio with South Carolina, if desired. 
This asisurance brings out the vital force that is in a man, and thus, 
raises the standard) of health to its maximum in every man, woman 
and child included in its embrace. The maximum state of health is 
not all that is gained by every one having a home and material main- 
tenance assured: public morals. Christian culture, a higher educa- 
tion, a firmer grasp on the infinite, a deeper devotion to the God" 
oi nature and to nature's God are likewise obtained. I appreciate 
the fact that I am presenting this most important industrial and 
material subject to my intellectual superiors or peers, who are as 
competent to think out the new relation of the doctor to his pa- 
tient, or society, as I am; but as it has been said, "A man may be 
familiar with his peers." I only presume to set ordinary things in 
a new light, that is a light in which they have not been presented" 
before. So. if you please, let us pursue the subject in its possible 
practical application, somewhat in detail. We will suppose the 
wealthy, as a class, are reconciled to the new order of things and" 
have abandoned, as a man would his homestead), all their right, title 
and interest to all their private possessions to an industrial depart- 
ment of the government, for an acceptable consideration: first, for a 
title to their own home back again, if they so desire — if not, a com- 
fortable home elsewhere, as agreed upon by consultation with the 
commission, which is composed of physicians, in part, at least. This 
title is superior, mark you, to the old title, in that the home cannot 
be sold for taxes or for any debt or mortgage, nor taken on mort- 
gage, nor by any member of the family. They of course can aban- 
don it to the government if they and the commission think it wise to 
do so. and aire then entitled to another, of like comfort, andas all' 
may think better adapted to their enjoyment of health or life in any 
of its prospects. 

Now that both labor and capital are to be hereafter under one 
management, this procedure seems adviisable because the decree 
now is that all must have homes of their own, and usually of their 
own choice, if they have any choice; that is, that the new title should 
issue in all cases direct from the government and under revised" 
stipulations and provisions. Also in that some such procedure 
would set aside the thought of partiality. All homes cannot be alike 
as commodious but if the government exhibits a real spirit of fair- 
ness, it will disarm any disposed to complain. Observe, in paasmg, 
that this home is the private property of the family. There is, as I 
believe, a God-given magic in the possession of private property 
that must not only be maintained but encouraged^ven as part of 
our school-day education, as my homie on earth is akin to and a 
forerunner of my home in Heaven, and each individual should be 
enabled by society to say, "My home." I can see no objection, for 
the present, at least, of using existing measures of value, silver, 
gold, etc; they have not only absolute use, but absolute convenience- 
and the proposition is to use all of good that we now have to pro- 
duce more and greater good. One of the present uses will be found'! 
in the proper settlement between the government and the original 
owners as I may best show by an example. The government decidies 
to combine all the productive property now used in the industries 
into one combine, making all the people stockholders, and hence 
entitled to dividends in lieu of wages, fees, salaries, etc., 
these dividends to be paid in cash or its equivalent. So - 
the combine authorized by the government approaches the original 
owner to buy his interest, and the probable basis of valuation agreed 
upon will be the present actual worth in gold coin; not that the- 
government, through the Combine, will pay gold coin in hand, ex— 



^02 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

' cept possibly in smal'l amounts, where a small margin exists, but 
more particularly as a basis for the dieferred payment, upon which 
a ismall rate of inte^rest should in fairness be paid by the govern- 
ment. It is agreedi by the commission of experts on that class of 
property, and their attorney, with the owner, that his mill, factory, 
farm, railroad, steamship, etc., or his financial interest therein, ia 
worth, we will say, $100,000; that his fine residence and lot unon 
which it stands is worth, 'say, $40,000; total, $140,000. Now deduct 
$40,000 for this home and estimate his stock, which all must have, 
both rich and poor alike, in the new combine, at $40,000, which, at 
three per cent, will equal $1,200 annual dividenidl, which it has been 
estimated will be sufficient for the running expenses of an average 
family of 'fS'ther, mother and' three children; these having their 
home free, prices reduced, if thought best, by an obvious increase, 
by co-operation, in productions, and decreased by freer distribu- 
tions by railroad , steamship, etc., all made possible by universal 
co-operation. The account stands, $40,000 for the home, more or 
less, $40,000 capital stock in the combine, equals $80,000, which de- 
ducted! from his $140,000, leaves $70,000, to be paid in some form ot 
government obligation, bearing a low rate of interest, and to be 
paid in, say, five, ten or twenty years. The government assumes 
control as 'a receiver, but immediately turns it over to the Indus- 
trial Combine, a corporation organized by the people for the pur- 
pose, which will proceed to operate it for and in the interest of the 
stockholders, identically like a railroad combine, they getting, as 
in the case of the home, a title direct from the government, better 
in any^andi in all particulars than though it had come from Pierpont 
Morgan, Mr. Rockefeller, Mr. Carnegie, or any other man or single 
class of men. This $40,000 of stock is merged into the combine, not 
only because it will be more productive there than if operated 
alone, but it will be as much or more his or her own private prop- 
erty than private property can possibly be now, for now no man is 
secure in his possessions of any kind except government bonds. 
A stronger than he or any of the above-named gentlemen may 
come and' turn one or all of them out bare-handed into the 
street, with no home or maintenance assured. By this method 
the magic of private ownership of property is maintained, not only 
in the home but on into the productive property, to be used' in the 
maintenance of the family. But we will follow it still further into 
its accumulations. We have set one hundred dollars per month 
for necessary running expenses. This may be a little more or less 
than considered necessary; and should the stockholders determine 
ttiat paft sTiould be 'retained by the combine and allowed to accu- 
mulate, and thus increase their capital stock, or reduce the hours 
of labor, it may be ordered by the same law and legal process as 
now prevail governing the combine and its stock-holders on per 
cent dividendls. We have tried to present one method of preceed- 
ing in establishing the home and the industrial Combine. It may 
be of interest to you to follow it on into its probable practical 
working and effects on the doctor and his patient (this takes in all 
the people). We will assume that it has become the doctor's pre- 
rogative to keep these people well, as well as to cure them as soon 
as possible, if sick. We will say the doctor lives in San Francisco, 
and by decision of the Medical Board is assigned, say one hundred 
families of five each, or five hundred in all. This Medical Board 
has previously distributed to each of these families a book on "How 
to Keep Well and How to Proceed in Case of Accident or Sudden 
Sickness." In this book, perhaps, are some blank spaces on almost 
•every page for this family physician to give some special directions. 



DOCTORS. 103 

applicable to this special family. The family physician becomes a 
family's confidante, and is expected to call in any time like a mem- 
ber of the family, and he has been chosen by the family in most 
cases: it may be on special application, or a pref«Tence at least for 
one or three or four offered to the family to select from, as assigned 
by the Medical Boardi to that locality or ward', village or city or 
country, always agreeable to the doctor and by his consent. Of 
course, distance must necessarily be taken into consideration by the 
family, and a doctor considered the family physician for ordinary 
cases of sickness perhaps may, in cas'es of "life and death," be re- 
quested! to send for another doctor, who may have been a family 
friend, for consultation. Probably no downtown office will be 
needed, as there is now no object to "catch the trade." The doctor 
is supposed to live at home, and his home is supposed to be in the 
center of his field of practrce. If the doctor does not have a son or 
daughter to receive callers or to answer his telephone, the industrial 
school must provide him with a young man or woman, probably 
below the school age limit, say from seventeen to twenty-one, who 
may aspire to study medicine, but now to act as an assistant. Spe- 
cialists will be located! much as they are no^w. or perhaps more inti- 
mately connected with sanitariums, hoispitals, etc., but the peoplewiU 
not be expected to pay for treatment, as the doctor is now provided 
for by his dividends in the Industrial Combine, the same as his 
patients. Shops, mills, factories, railroad centers, etc., should have 
a suroreon, whose duty it should be to be on the premises during 
working hours to treat emergency cases. The universal use of the 
telephone in both city and country will be beneficial alike to the 
doctor and his patients. It is not intendled to make the doctor's 
duties burdensome, but we believe he will earn his money as surely 
as if he carried the hod or followed the plow. Yet he will in no 
way be injured, and' as he occupies such a high position of influence^ 
in society, his opinions in these industrial matters, like his medicine, 
will be taken with the confidence unknown to any other class of 
men; and, as we firmly believe, we cannot successfully proceed 
without him, and certainly not against him. This may seem too 
frank an acknowledgment but in looking at the facts as they realK 
exist, we feel impelled to make it, and we do not believe tjiat pro- 
fessional honor will take an advantage of it to defeat the people. 
There is a peculiar emergency upon us, as seen in the conflict be- 
tween capital and labor, and a boldness of treatment unknown to 
any preceding age is an absolute necessity to arouse the people to a 
sense of their financial thralldom and business privileges, an indus- 
trial combination taking in all the people. But uncontrolled com- 
bination is fast taking the place of competition, and becoming an 
enormous power and menace to the liberty of the people, threaten- 
ing to squeeze the life out of all the people, except a few favorites, 
in the Combine. The intelligence of the profession can and do see- 
this, andl in time to prevent it if they will. Let me appeal to you 
in the interest of public health, in the broad interest of humanity, 
to help, when and where help is so much needed, and at a strategic 
point where nothing else can avail, and accept the .gratitude of a 
grateful people as your reward. Let me impress the fact that noth- 
ing Less than the magic wondi "home" will unite the people. All 
can comprehend that, and all it means to them, if they do not have 
one, but if they have, and are not already willing, they can be per- 
suaded, by our united tact and suitable diplomacy, to not only be- 
come willing, but active workers, to bring about the People's Busi- 
ness Combine. 

We must become and continue to be a yet more positive people,. 



104 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

we have Entirely outgrown the swaddling clothes of negations, and 
negative methods of procedure, so no more holding back. You may- 
say as bad) things against the Democratic party as you can think of, 
but the worst thing that you can say of it is, that it is a negative 
party; you can say as good or bad things as you please against the 
Irish people, but their greatest weakness is that they are a negative 
people. In all the crimes of competition the worst of all is that it is 
negative; it is against every man. 

Back when civilization was young, we hear the then necessary 
thunderings of the "Thou shalt nots" coming down from the 
mountain of Sinai, to a people very properly called children. But 
long years after, when Christ came, the children were larger grown, 
and' God adapting Himself to their advancement, sweetly said in per- 
suasive accents, "Blesised are," "Blessed are," "Blessed are," in the 
beautiful language of the Beatitudes, echoing from a mountain ot 
Galilee, accessible (mark you) to the multitude. He sat down and 
lovingly taught the people, all the people; and from that day until 
now, civilization has been trying, through a thousand defeats and 
failures, .to graft on, to connect Christian to itself, until here at the 
very antipode of the hill country of Judea, America, and in our 
America, do we find self-government, prepared as a bride adorned 
for her husband, to receive self-interest, and the long-sought union 
is consummated, and civilization and Christianity are no longer 
twain, but one flesh, one word; Christianization, like as a word, is 
the sign of an idea. Do we catch up the idea and read as Oicver be- 
fore, "Whatever ye would that men should! do unto you, do' ye even 
so to them"? Which idea being crystallized into statute, law, and 
revealed now as of purely industrial signification and intended for 
the guidance of men and women, not saints or angels, but men, and 
that, too, while here on earth and in every possible industrial busi- 
ness relation, entirely intended for live men, and adapted to men, 
and that all along and at every age from the cradle to the grave, 

■ rfnd thoughtfully may it not be. Doctor, whether you are prepared to 
believe it or not, that some one in whom God has confidence and 
whose requests He respects, has spoken to Him about our larger 
family, our America; and that He is moving in His way to answer 

"that request. And furthermore. He, who can make the wrath of 
man to praise Him, may He not be teaching us by the object- 
lesson, seen in the ability of one man to manipulate a billion dollar 
combine as easily as a child does a toy, of a time just at hand, when 
the whole industrial department of America can be as easily manip- 
ulated from one center of management, one combine, one definite 
plan, and touching all alike kindly and equally just to you and me 
and) all the people. Else, Doctor, why do combines forever succeed, 
notwithstanding our mad rush to destroy them? We cannot claim 
that they are fundamentally wrong, but rather, that they are rude, 
like a big, overgrown, awkward brother tossing his baby sister 
around roughly yet playfully, simply to show that he can; and may 
we not as thoughtfully conclude, as we grimly confess to the failure 
of strikes (for nearly every strike that seemingly succeeds is as bad 
as a failure), that they are a misconception, and that it is not a union 
of men outside of industry (we have that complete already in the 
political government established in 1876), but a union of industry 
that we really need. As well as men love their union, there is not 
one of them but would change place with a stockholder in a com- 

"bine, if they could. 

Thus they unwittingly admit that the principle underlying the 
combine is right and is truly susceptible of becoming a friend — a 
friend that is not only willing to be a friend in need, but abundantly 



DOCTORS. 105 . 

able to become a friend in deed. Doctors agree in this that to keep . 
people well, attention must be given to building up vital andresisting 
power (they can't do it now with authority). That some men can re- 
sist an epidemic that carries another off his feet is apparent. The 
real hope of the profession is to build up vital force. Vaccination 
and inoculation are all well enough, but it is far better to be so , 
healthy as to be immune. A discrete and good-tempered supervis- 
ion must be given to the profession to enforce a prohibition from 
a business standpoint, which is far more agreeable than from a 
political, moral or religious standpoint. One of the advantages in it 
is seen in the utter helplessness of objecting to it, no matter whether 
it is in eating, drinking or wearing. 

Government is political in character, so we are not suffering 
from any imperfection of our' political government. It is perfected; 
it is self-government; it is complete; it is a republic and at peace with 
all the world: it is all right just as it is. able and ready to take care - 
of itself— let it alone. We are all loyal to it, and nobody disputes 
the fact that it is dbing its duty— its whole duty, and' as a government 
it cannot produce, so don't expect it to help us industrially; it could 
not if it would. Industry is out of its domain, and mark you, our 
suiTering comes only from the disorder of our industries, hence we 
must look to industrial business for a proper adjustment, because 
business manipulates all industries. Government cannot, morals, 
cannot, religion cannot, unions cannot, but, aye, business pure and 
simple business can, and as it devolves upon business to adjust the- 
right relations of industry, to what form of business are we to look 
for relife? To that form of "go as you please, every fellow for- 
himself," knock down and drag out planless way called competition?- 
Or the courteous, gallant^ differential, dignifiedi self-respecting., 
definite, orderly method of business, called the combine? 




What Effect will Industriatl Equality Have Upon 
the Intentions of Men? 

In' a sense we live in our intention. A purely exclusive inten- 
tion born in the child, living and breathing in its home an atmos- 
phere of exclusiveneS'S, will likely cause it to be intentionally exclu- 
sive, as he launches out into active life as we have it now, and hears 
the precept, "Every fellow for himself," and finds it really to be the 
rule of business action, is it any wonder that he continues to be so 
supremely selfish (used in the sense of exclusiveness) as not to rec- 
ognize in his intentions the just rights of other men or the rights of 
the God who made us all and entitled to our respect and recognition. 
On the other hand, if born into a home breathing out good will in 
its social and business relations with all men, launching out into a 
society whose very intentions is tO' be fair and equitable in its busi- 
ness relations, he will rather recognize the just rights of others and' 
the also the rights of God. Competition literally teaches antago- 
nism, and if our hand is against every other in business, is it to be 
expected that we can have heart-felt co-operation in morals and 
religion? If God did let us all into Heaven, we would quarrel and 
cheat from force of habit. Combination of business interests will 
lead us intuitively to harmonious efTorts to obtain the good, the true, 
and the beautiful in life, and then on up to the Maker of it all. 
Opposition in trade may be, and is the life of coinpetitive trade, 
but it is death to the trader, especially if he succeeds, because it 
fatally poisons his intentions. He intends to be unfair, intends to 
cheat, and' may break any and all of the 'Ten Commandments, to 
get the best of the trade, and knowing that he can't get in by the 
door, he desperately takes his chances of getting into Heaven some 
other way, and thus cheating God. It's toO' bad that he was not born 
to better trained parents, and into better environments of both home 
and general society, that his first intentions might have been good 
rather than evil. It is not enough to excuse himself by thinking 
everybody dbes it. It is a sad comment, to be sure, on our present 
nefarious competitive system, that it is; iSo nearly true. Every 
good intention to reform will sooner qr later end back again into 
this broad path tO' evil — nothing less than the^ other direction, the 
other end of the path of life, the exact reverse of competition which 
is combination, the spirit of co-operation, can ever permanently avail. 
Being fair by intention in our business relations, we will be fair by 
intention socially, fair by intention morally, fair by intention relig- 
iously, and being free moral agents, we will be fair by intention with 
God. People of all ages are imitative creatures and quickly catch 
the spirit surrounding them, from the example of co-operation 
among a few men as we see it in the combines before us. Our inten- 
tion is tO' immediately appropriate the idea so that its good offices 
may not only reach the few now in it but all the people. It's right 
in theory and will prove to be right in practice. We must act. It's 
an axiom that "All men would rather be good than evil." That we 
do not succeed in being good is largely because of our business 
"training, — competition forbids it; we can't quite be good and knock 
■down and drag out our brother man and do it intentionally. 



Lawyers. 

In presenting industrial equality for the consideration of tlie- 
legal profession, I am not seeking to inform them but to remind,, 
them and enlist their sympathy in favor of a better mdustnal condi- 
tion of society, and to the extent oi securing their enthusiastic co- 
operation. I am aware that any compromise is against the inter- 
ests of the profession, much as universal good health is. against my 
owTi profession; yet, it is exceedingly plain that it would be better 
for society if it were only the physician's business and interests to ■ 
keep people well. So if lawyers were only interested m seeing that, 
society shall do just the right, and shun the transgression of any law, . 
the practice of law, as we now know it, would at least be quite an- 
other, matter, so that it may require a spirit of magnanimity on, 
your part to even begin this investigation. Let me msist for both-, 
of us that we rise above selfishness as far as our previous education 
or training will allow, and put ourselves, if we can, outside of and be- 
yond our environments, as though our accustomed work was over and - 
life and its mighty interests were now passing in review, or that some- 
how we were permitted to go back to the beginning, as it were, m, 
the life of a son, perhaps, and live it all over agam, but this tmie in 
the interests of others, and try to realize the fact that we have really;- 
become. both here and mow our brother's keeper, trymg to think 
out all that "brother" can be made to. mean to us, as well as that 
other word "keeper." Labor may not be looked upon as so many 
do, as a penalty that all men have to pay, andl yet all men seek to. 
avoid. The difference largely lies in its relations, and it is in its 
relations that the help I ask is needed, rather than in the labor itself 
Men and women are not working to hurt themselves; it is the 
menial idea that hurts. If lawyers had been as industrious in ad- 
justing right relatioinis between laborers, from the begmnmg, teach , 
them to think the right thoughts, most, if not all the existing differ- 
ences, would have been avoided, or could never have existed, ihe 
facts are, we have helped the one most who needed it least because 
as it seems, the coin was in the hands of that one. But be that as 
it may, we must look at the conditions as they are now, and with 
a determination to set industrial wrong right. 

And as we propose to deal with society and its relations, we 
must, from now on, try to see to k that all enter society on an 
equal footing. (Lawyers will understand that this is only a 
short chapter in a little book and excuse the disconnection and the 
author for just hitting the high places.) • ,• j i u f ,u^ 

The unit of society, as we assume, is not the individual, but the 
famdly, and the family touches society at the home and m a sense 
begins where the home leaves off. These homes may not need be 
alike except in permanency. All must have a home, with its coni- 
forts guaranteed to them (See remedy), amountmg to a real s ake m, 
the country, a completed self-interest. Anything wrong in this as 
a matter of jurisprudence? Anything wrong, about, this... as a, matterr 
of public policy? This we believe will make good citizens out of. 



108 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

■of tramps and real soldiers out of citizens. Is it not a shameful bur- 
lesque, judge, to make a man believe he is fighting for his country, 
when he has not and cannot get a home in it? We, as society, can 
not only afiford to advance every mother, real or pros- 
pective, a home; but as I hope to show, we cannot afTord 
to not do it, and that loyally in the defense of our own 
family. Is it not the true principle of society to d'evelop men 
and women for associates? Now, to develop these, we must 
develop their self-respect. Is that done by giving them toys and 
sweetmeats, as charity? To be sure, there is a sense in which a 
start may be considered a gift— so may political freedom; so may a 
public school education; so may family gifts, etc. — and, like these, the 
process must not stop short of its greatest object, in that every one 
is guaranteed a home. This, like freedom and ed^ication, is given 
to others and all alike in our own defense. No one can take an 
education fro-m a child, nor, as yet, political freedom from a citizen; 
neither should they take homes, and they cannot when industry is 
raised to an equality with political freedom. All are entitled to all 
these things and we, as society, owe it to each o.ther on the basis 
and from the fact that we are men and women, or will be, and not 
because we earn these things. Now, as we siaid, at the very thres- 
hold of the home, society begins, and the nation is vitally concerned, 
not only that all shall have and keep their education and liberty, 
but also their homes, and that the home should develop men and 
women for our associates; so it must be siacredly guarded by 
society in order that all may not only have an equal opportunity for 
development, but the, best opportunity, hence it becomes the busi- 
ness of society, the larger family, to protect the feeble in mind as 
well as the feeble in body, and the man or woman who is feeble- 
minded enough to sell their liberty, their education, or their home, 
must be protected by society and prevented from doing so. 

Society may be considered simply as an extension of legal 
guardianship. Lawyers will keep in mind that I am trying in this 
letter to them to re/ach the people, who in their politcal capacity 
took America from King George. The people in their industrial 
capacity now take over America from King Capital; then the people 
will be as free and equal industrially, \as we are now free and equal 
politically. We have become accustomed to political equality and 
think it is allowable iand all right. We will soon become accustomed 
to industrial equality and think it allowable and all right. 

The equality of the declaration of independence is all right, so 
far as we have observed or obeyed it, but that is not very far? It 
is a very modest document in theory, but far more in practice if it 
meant only political equality; as it would today be almost obsolete, 
for now our great size protects us, so that grit is hardly needed. If 
it anticipates industrial equality, as we think it does, our business 
training oir better called industrial fighting, known by that euphoni- 
ous name. Competition, has nearly ruined us, carried us wide of the 
mark, for the very reverse has been our seeming object. As un- 
equal as we were in wealth in '76, society has and does allow the 
strong to help themselves to the solid coin of the realm, and pays 
the weak ofif in pity and good advice. If society would be honest 
enough to even keep hands oflf, that there might be a fair fight, it 
would not be so bad, but to rub down the bully and load him with 
all he can carry ofi, and then thrown in a transcontinental railroad 
or two, seems contemptible. I am reminded of an historical narra- 
tion which every lawyer might do well to read. (Doctors read it. I 
have read it. and you must read whether you believe the Bible or 
not.) It can be found in the eleventh and twelfth chapters of II 
Samuel. 



LAWYERS. 109 

If all were equally wise, but they are not, then the ignorant are 
the ones needing help. If all were equally rich, but they are not, 
then the poor are the ones who need financial aid. Are all equally 
strong? — but they are not; then the weak need protection. Is it 
poissible that we have been doing, as a nation of brothers, just the 
reverse of this and yet call ourselves after Christ a Christian na- 
tion? If so, let us 'do as Sam JoneS' says, "Quit our meanness." 
Political government is not instituted or maintained for spoils, but 
for those who needl it most, and idustrial productions are intended 
for those who> need them. Society must be competent to know its 
own wants, and one is a member of it as well as another, both polit- 
ically and industrially and can, when all cltsses are included and 
united under like managements attending to their own business 
affairs in their own way and will do so to perfection. Suppose the race 
goes hereafter into society from a home in which all have had equal 
opportunity, simple justice having previously been done them by 
the famdly up to this point. Now society, the larger family, takes 
them and continues this principle of justice to its "children of 
larger growth." But how is it now. Look at the young man fight; 
he is not taught to fight in his family life, but fight he must now, aye. 
It seems to me a little less than infamy to turn young men out to 
prey on others, and to be preyed upon — to vandalize and to be 
vandalized. It is "easy to walk all over a fellow when we once get 
him down, and you will agree with me, when you have thought it 
out that the man tied down is the least injured of the two after all. 
The character is the real man, and God, the competent Judge, does 
not always find it associated with great wealth. So it is clear that 
society must continue the family's watchful care, from the cradle 
to the grave, and it is her rightful business to do it; it is what she 
is here for. How can she best do; it? Society must show authority. 
A family, for example, without parental authority, is a monstrosity, 
but kindly discreet authority, as important as it is, is a small af¥air 
-when placed in comparison with the commissary or general supply 
department, or the department of character-building. It is the pa- 
rent's duty to do anything for the children or home that it can do 
better than the children can do for themselves, just as the parents 
must do for each child anything that they can do better than the 
child can db for itself. So must society step in at twenty-one and do 
for the incompetent children of a larger growth. 

In one sense, all members of the family are members of society, 
but as individual responsibility now rests upon the supporting 
members of the family, I shall include them particularly in the an- 
swer to the question. How shall society prooeed in the industrial 
part of its affairs. We have been and must continue to be careful 
in preserving the rights of private property, in the home, so that 
no member of the family can sell or give it away, thus maintaining 
the rights of each member to say, "]V%' home." I wish to say right 
here, in passing, that a real intrinsic value is attachedi to the home, 
partially, at least, from the fact that we all do own as individuals. So 
we mnst alL still maintain individual rights to property through lite, 
not -en masse, but as individuals and as stockholders in a combine; 
we can do so, and judge it is the only way. I am not a lawyer, but 
I know that much law. It used to be said that competition was the 
life of trade, though it may have proved to be the death of the 
trader. Combination, its direct antithesis as a principle, is begin- 
ning to prevent the masses from ever becoming traders, and to pet- 
rify every atom of matter for its own selfish use. Some of the most 
thoughtful stand appalled before it, but most all sail around on the 
periphery or narrowing circumference of this great maelstrom, as 
innocently as a child at play, innocently unmindful of what combines 



110 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

really mean to us who are not stockholders. But 1 am not here to 
oppose — it is useless now to oppose — rather to use and appropriate 
the very principle involved — the Combine Idea. It is like fire of 
water, a good and necessary servant, but a hard, cruel, crushing, 
destructive master, if uncontrolled. Society has been opposing, 
yielding, yea, sacrificing itself by deferring to these private con- 
tractors for this, that and the other, instead of doing all its owa 
distribution and all its own productive work, fostering ex-officio 
or private fortunes to its own loss. It is almost an axiom to say 
that under our competitive methods of business a gain in wealth to 
one means a corresponding loss somewhere, making inequality more 
and more unequal. Prudence may dictate that habits of business 
procedure long estblished, possibly coming down to us from the 
dark ages, should not be changed for any light and transcient causes, 
hence we have been innocently disposed to suffer while evils were 
suflferable rather than to right ourselves by abolishing the sly mo- 
tive of competition; to the selfishness to which we had been accus- 
toined, under monarchical government, but when a long train of mis- 
fortunes vmrepublican, arising invariably from this same cause, 
threaten us with absolute despotism of wealth, ruling us instead of 
we ruling it, it is our right and has become our duty to adopt a 
higher motive, self-interest as a sure safeguard' for our future well- 
being and security as a republic. We all feel this pressure of an 
injustice — some more, some less. To get relief, every class restraint 
must be laid aside. As we have seen, all are not equally wise, judge, 
to do andl d^re in matters of large moment, and hence do not act 
in time to avoid mobs, strikes, revolutions, etc., a possible procedure 
as easy, may be, for the legal profession as the organization of a 
corporation. fThe laboring, or any other class, can no more, as an 
unaided class lift or take themselves out of their unfortunate con- 
dition than a man can lift himself by bis own boot-straps. You 
muist help us. All must be united and lift together, but on what 
basis? Labor, as a word, has a stigma attached to it, and can 
never be popular in a leading sense; andl then it means a class oi 
4 party, and that must kill anything that goes by a class name, and 
its friends must be brought to realize it. Hence, labor will not do for 
a basis. Industry, to be a vital moving force, must persuade men, 
must appeal to their sense of justice, must offer an inducement. The 
Aery idea of a class or union is exclusive in its own ideal existence, 
thus setting up a defiance, not only on its own account, but invites 
a counter-defiance by those not included thus putting persuasion out 
of the question. Any kind of an antagonism is not applicable and 
cannot be recognized or become a basis. Human nature is odd. 
The old Quaker had it about right when he said to his old wife,. 
"Mother, everybody is odd but thee and me," and after a long si- 
lence, he continued, "and sometimes I think even thou art a little 
odd." I go back to the family for an ilktstration. Let a child, as a 
member of the family, ask properly for a thing, and if it is proper 
and in the parents' power, he gets what he asks for; but let that 
child demand it. and it is refused. There is all the difference in the 
world; so now let the homeless ask an able society for a home, ap- 
propriately, and they will get it, and you, judge, will be the first to 
help to give it to them. Everybody knows they ought to have it, 
and society will politely say, "Well, excuse me for not offering it 
to you sooner." Society is not now and has not been opposed to it 
rather it does not approve of their methods of asking for what they 
need or by not appreciating the fact that we, as society, are really 
able to give it to them. Antagoinism, from a child up to the Presi- 
dent, is no go — at least, President Johnson did not make it go. It 
is plain that nothing can be accomplished by such antagonism — but 



LAWYERS. Ill 

by yielding, and the homeless especially can afiford' to "stoop to 
conquer," and by skillful negotiations, diplomacy, if you please, tact 
and talent, the best that is in each of us. an unlimited spirit of con- 
cession to the opinions of others and in the interest of common 
good. 

The lamp of experience, like any other lamp, does not show 
light on the whole way from the beginning to the end but as we 
carry it along with us it will shine clearly on the first step we take 
in the direction of the home for all, and as we step out in its light 
our lamp will advance with us, shining on every subsequent step 
until the real home is reached and that not a moment too soon; if it 
were my mother, my wife, or my child that is homeless tonight, I 
would insist on it that it be as soon as possible, for my family's 
sake, as well as that of members of society, the larger family. 

The self-interest of society demandls that men and women now 
living in enforced idleness be permitted to support themselves. Let 
them go to work, some in the idle factories, some others in farming, 
market-gardening, etc., and some at building homes, permanent 
homes wherever practical but temporary if not permanent. 1 say 
let them, and they will if we only let them. Let every lawyer, 
fairmer, doctor, mechanic, unskilled laborer and statesman build 
over against his own house. Answer the question from the high 
motive of self-interest, "What can I do?"— and needless suffering 
from destitution will soon cease for our land is one of great plent> 
for all. Combined co-operation will make practical and easy every 
step of the way. , , , i -, 

After all the facts are in, are we not our brothers keeper.^ 
Brother does not mean enemy after all, nor keeper mean destroyer 
—competitor as we have been taught by our competitive business 
methods and training, that is, to get rich at all hazarls. 

Competent management by society is as needful as the material 
used. So that the idle will largely be able to build their own homes 
if we plan to give them a chance. Men are not lazy. True, indus- 
try has been stigmatized as labor, as service, as menial, and all that, 
but let us give men an even chance. 

If any "lawyer, doctor, merchant-chief," as the riddle goes, 
hesitates because his sacrifice is seemingly too great, let him take 
another measurement of himself. This time measure your soul, my 
brother. Some women have greater souls for a husband than they 
think. We all somehow feel that we can bank on the great size of 
the soul of woman, when measured for humanity and a home for 
humanity. But, my dear judge, the facts are, that both you and 
your good wife will find the new order delightfully agreeable rather 
than irksome— to do your part, yea, rather when once enlisted, when 
interest in the needy can yield returns paramount to effort exerted, 
a pleasure never found in dispensing doleful charity, but rather akin 
to that of the family, will ever expand your field of usefulness and 
broaden life's mission before you. There is no class of men whose 
business it is to care for society, as a whole, as emphatically as the 
lawyers. I believe they love to do it. And when once they get 
clear out and away from their personal fees, so that they need never 
think of a fee, and engrossed in the uplifting of humanity, becom- 
ing friends in need, they will be estimated at theur true worth as 
friends indeed, having their honor maintained, their dignity pre- 
served necessary wealth assured, a home as elegant as now, yea, the 
very same home if they love it. For the best results, my brother, 
your help is needed. Being a stockholder in the great combine, 
you can give yourself to scholastic and legal matters, while having 
the most competent financiers in the world at the head of a combine 
attending to your financial interests profitably to you, which some 



112 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

of you have not been able to do for yourselves. Suppose a man is- 
•rich; now a richer than he may take it all. No insurance guarantees 
to you or your family after you are gone exemption from a condi- 
tion of poverty like that now seen all around you. Good men can 
thus give full swing to the cultivation of the virtues, and bad men 
should not have private wealth with which to produce a greater 
crop of vices, for when we think of it, it is vices that are bought 
and sold, and not virtues. So selfish wealth may not only be a vice 
in itself, but a buyer of vice. 

Adequate strength of body and adequate strength of mind are 
not always found united in one person, hence the necessity of a har- 
monious unity of both, unprejudiced by hard lines of demarcation 
or clannishness. Strength of body is as much a gift of God as- 
strength of mind; but man, each alike, depends upon the other, and 
society is entitled! to the best there is in both. Ability to make 
mon-ey is not and never has been, as you very well know, any crite- 
rion of mental calibre, but rather a species of kleptomania. 

Our Declaration of Independence treads, "Establish justice." 
Let us begin now, though it may seem a little late, and live up to 
it; it is what we are here in America for. We have long enougli 
been seeking the might of wealth rather than the right of the Naza- 
rene. The combines are but linger boards pointing that way. 

As a principle, we should not accept a thing for ourselves unless 
others have a counterpart of it, as at our tables. The individual will, 
through the combine, become the jolly bread-winner, expecting the 
home to appropriate every needed luxury. For this happy consum- 
mation, I see two poissible causes of delay: the first is found in re- 
straint, timidity and lack of freedom in procedure, a holding-back 
from a kind of false modesty or a real disposition to shirk our own 
individual responsibility in the matter or waiting for another to 
move. The second is, a probable disposition to stop short of thor- 
oughness or completion— that is, in leaving isome productive prop- 
erty out of the combine, catering to a false definition of personal 
liberty, thus yielding to a sickly sentiment, a false cry of confisca- 
tion, coercion, injustice, etc. There is not a single pretext that can 
be raised against consolidating all productive property (and when I 
say all I mean all) into a combine to be operated by the people 
through the industrial annex of the government, but is just now,, 
this very moment, being utilized in a greater or less degree by 
political government, and voluntairily yield to it, and we all know it. 
I defy any man to show one. Mark you, if a single little exception 
or compromise were made, it would to that extent at least, and may 
entirely, defeat the measure. Did the Emancipation Proclamation 
say, all free except a class? No, no; it included all. We as definitely 
pass under the sway of the combine. We all know that taxation is a 
species of force, and that an income-tax, in a measure, is confisca- 
tion, and any law against trusts an injustice to the trust. Any ad- 
vance madie towards government control by force, to the extent of 
an express office, a mile of railroad, or municipal ownership of 
anything, is subject to the same clamor and protest made by selfish 
men and with as just reason — aye, shall I not say many times greater 
reason than any entering willingly into the great corportion, which, 
mark you. is for the real self-interest of everybody, rich or poor. 
See that we don't fiddle oir listen to the music while Rome is burn- 
ing. We cannot afford to quibble with men ot imaginajy objections- 
while others as good as they are suffering from destitution and real 
and absolute want at this very moment. The suffering man is 
surely equally deserving to the other and equally entitled to our 
compassion and consideration. The sacredness of human life is cer- 
tainly more sacred than a presumptive or asserted sacred right of 



LAWYERS. lis 

property, although life is being trampled upon every day in the 
regular order of existing business, when competition wants to do 
so. A remedy is simple and easy for an individual or a governrnent 
when it really wants to apply it, and somehow it then seems right. 
Again, lest some yet cling to^ the idea that a home for all and a. 
working capital, to be placed in the hands of an industrial combine 
and operated by that combine, will work an injustice to some of the 
wealthy, let me innocently inquire why a landlord, for examples- 
should be preferred over the laborer whose labor he (the landlord), 
has taken and stored up as his own accumulation. Has not labor- 
already suffered by this confiscation of its just share, and is not the 
landlord to be congratulated that his turn has not come sooner,, 
rather than condoned with? If not, why not? But I do not believe 
a proper adjustment is confiscation at all. Government is sirnply 
acting as arbiter. We pay for everything but confiscate nothing,, 
and every one gets his share of the stock; and he is sure to get it,. 
as well as his family after hini. Take an illustrttion: If Mir. Lincoln,, 
at the time of the Emancipation Proclamation, had said, in efifect:. 
"Every, slave is not only free but, in simple justice, must have a. 
home provided"; as I look at it he might have said', "It seems worse 
than slavery to most of them to be thus turned out without re- 
sources and unaided. Government must provide all men with work 
and supplies, or some must suffer want. Their work must support 
them and will in the end." If, under proper industrial supervision,, 
if this had been done, and intelligently continued up to this hour for 
the Negroes, why we really would be pooir white trash. Sure 
enough, if Mr. Lincoln had done so, it might have then been con- 
sidered an innovation by some. But it seems we are living in an 
age in which everything advances faster than the sentiment of the 
Golden Rule. Nothing else seems to be held back for want of a 
precedent which might mean merely a pretext for deciding a case 
adversely. Why, these precedents cannot, and ought not, to fit the 
improved conditions of a child rocked to sleep in a cradle run by 
electricity, and instead of a morning walk with the judlge among 
the pigstys of the dark ages, just as if thinking that he would find 
something there applicable to the here and now, the little one is taken 
by his nurse for a ride in an airship over mountains and seas and 
back at noon, almost annihilating distance, finding his learned pa, 
with disheveled hair puzzling over and trying to evade the just ap- 
plication of the new commandment (John xiii:34). GodI means 
our improved conditions to reflect on all alike, as does his sunshine. 
I have noticed elsewhere that our system of education, as good as it 
is, is incomplete, in that it leaves our young people who have it, 
as unable or helpless to use it frequently as a Robinsoe Crusoe 
would have been on his exile island. It would have been a mercy 
to many of our young people never to have had their ambitions- 
aroused by a preparatory education, rather than now to have them 
crushed or treated so ruthlessly, when finding themselves tO' be only 
educated paupers. They have as just a right to expect society to set 
them on their feet materially with proper safeguards as to give them 
a common school education, and society cannot afiford not to do it, 
and that in her own interest as well, for poverty is not a congenial 
soil for the production of culture. 

Let me claim that in the home, matters of state, or the better- 
ing of conditions of industrial society, will be thought out without 
bias when we are free from the demands of hunger or fear of future 
destitution, and consequently will be more nearly right and just. 
Let me claim for such society that it will be fully competent in the 
premises, not only to be supremely just, but supremely progressive. 
But society will not, cannot be united or aroused or made to care 



1L4 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

as a whole for a small matter, as for example, the merging of an 
express company into the postal department; though we may think 
it belongs there and should have always been there. Or, again, the 
nationalizing of a railroad or two; or, in purely local matters, as 
city control of light and water plants, street cars, etc. Society will 
say and see: "These little things do not concern us as a whole. 
Their scope is far too small; their purpose far too limited'." So we 
argue, the purpoise must first be supremely great — aye, great enough 
to attract the attention of the great mass of all the classes of men 
and women. That purpose is found in the People's Business Com- 
bine, with its central figure, its visible inducement, the home. 
Home, coupled with its national support, is the embodiment of all 
our physical life in one word — the greatest word in our language; 
it expresses the greatest idea possible to material things and will 
have and hold all in attention. A separate and comfortable home 
assured to every family is the true basis of the material aspect of 
society everywhere in any form of government, but especially in a 
republic. Further, all productive property not included in the home 
is merged into a combine, to be operated as such, thus disseminating 
and maintaining the magic of private property, only eliminating from 
It its present weapon-like idea, so that it cannot be used to injure 
others, and, mark you, only as the very best method for the manip- 
ulation of private property. It is little less than supplanting com- 
petition in favor of its opposite, the Combine, and then puttmg the 
Combine where all the people can bid it Godspeed. It has been said 
that lawyers are afraid of religion; even some clients may fear that 
self-interest is too religious. Let us ask. Is a railroad combine a 
religious organization? Answer it, yes or no, just as it pleases you. 

We have heard people call Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan a good 
many names, but I never heard any one call him an evangelist; did 
you? But suppose that every one of our seventy million people be- 
long to Mr. Morgan's combine, and we, the stockholders, have a 
meeting. The chairman takes his seat on Mt. Whitney (Califoirnia) ; 
a man gets up on some mountain in Maine and says (by telephone) : 
'"Ir. Chairman, I move, sir, inasmuch as every vestige of productive 
property is now in possession of our combine, that we do not need 
selfishness any more; that we here and now substitute self-interest 
as a new center of radiation in all our business procedures." A 
man away down in the valley (Mississippi Valley) says, "I second 
the motion." The chairman says, "I rule the motion out of order, 
because the motive of the combines from the very first — the basic 
idea, the Combine idea, the secret of their business success and 
guaranty of their continued existence — is the self-interest of the 
stockholders, be they many or few." 

Is that, too, religious? Besides, religious people must neces- 
sarily aim at any evil in sight. Even you, judge, may be more reli- 
gious than, you give yourself credit for. So, be fair and give them 
a chance; they won't hurt you. , 

The people are left to do as they please in self-government, 
and so will they be in industry. This is the viultum imparvo of the 
whole matter. When self-interest becomes the center of action, we 
must see and recognize this fact, that the force that animates men 
is personal inducement; that the force which sustains self-govern- 
ment is its inducement to us as a liberty-loving people; so what does 
basis in this, a free government. The existing inducement to sus- 
tain and extend the saloons, for example, is greater than the busi- 
ness inducement of morals and religion, hence there is no practical 
way for self-government literally to control inebriety, but to pre- 
sent the fact that sobriety has greater business inducements than 
-drinking. So eating and drinking must necessarily be referred to a 



LAWYERS. . 115S. 

Business Board of Health, with power to act, which practicallyr 
settks intemperance by statute law. This so relieves morals and, 
religion that they may the more efficiently operate in their respective, 
domains. Some men will selfishly dirink until they can and do see a 
greater inducement, a real self-interest, in abstinence. Smooth down 
liquor men the right way, judge, and we can catch them, in fact^. 
like a lady if the right one is after them; they wcwuld rather be 
caught than not. 

This brings us to the definite proposition: Let Congress pass, 
an. enabling act, if that is the smoothest way, of the wisest con- 
sustain self-interest in Industrial Combines is also their induce- 
ments, and of course inducement will ever actuate the People's In- 
dustrial Combine, and it, like self-government, must stand upon that 
struction, authorizing the Industrial Combine, similar in rights antti 
privileges to existing corporations, to include all productive prop- 
erty, to be operated co-operatively for the people as stock-holders... 
There is positively no way for us to meet the emergency now upon; 
us, but to combine as a whole— a kind' of counterplot, if you please — 
setting this industrial problem as completely at rest as the signing; 
of the Declaration of Independence did self-government: thus 
preventing thirteen little monarchies. No half-way measure will 
do — no provision for any backward movement — for our tree of 
liberty is in as great danger from these wise and legal and (shall I 
add) righteous combines, as the thirteen colonies were then. Being: 
right, corporations cannot be nullified by any constitutional enact- 
ment. Congress or the President has no power or business to in- 
terfere with a Combine when acting legally. We do not propose' 
to nullify, but we can absorb them by a process of voluntary ab- 
sorption. Let the motto be, the order given, "No step backward." 
Let the legislative enactment be of magnitude, tantamount to the 
requirements and the legal procedure comprehensive enough to in- 
duce every man, every combine, to adbpt splf-interest m preference 
to existing selfishness, much as the farmer does— a new, improved, 
and better machine instead of the old. Judge, you know that coni-- 
bines have a legal basis, and that they are too wise to exceed their 
legal rights, and very seldom do, for they are led by attorneys. You 
know that they can go on and on until they can legally include, 
virtually, all property, and that for a corporal's guard of stock- 
holders; and that Congress cannot pass a restraining law that will; 
be constitutional. Why, even a nation cannot give away a thing 
and also keep it — we can't eat our cake and keep it! So why should; 
not every lawyer step out and tell the people plainly that there is 
no way. absolutely no way, but to anticipate these combines by a 
counterplot that will head them of?, so to speak, or receive them in- 
the interest of a combine including all the people; hence, all com- 
bine, and that to their real advantage. When there is plainly no 
other way, judge, you must step to the front and lead the people 
out, especially that no sacrifice is required^— yea, it rather militates, 
to your self-interest, to my self-interest, and to the self-interest ot 
all the people— industrially, pofitically and morally. 

We are not here to denounce but to discriminate between a 
combine for the people and a -combine for- a syndicate; yet we as- 
sert, as a friend to Labor, that some of the managers of syndicates, 
by their genius, their genuine ability for planning great projects and 
pushing them, in spite of opposition, to splendid fruition, sim- 
plify methods, expand and cheapen production, show us how to better 
the condition and give permanency to economics. Tsey bring out 
and show up the ability of corporation until it has become the ad- 
miration, the wonder of the world. These men are doing more than 
all else in giving definiteness to industrial supremacy and to mcreasc 



116 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

Its prestige; yea, they have shown us that this Republic, as a politi- 
cal government, is prepared for the glorious Combine age — an age 
■of people. As new conditions have arisen, new methods must be 
adopted to meet them. America, in its search for economics, have 
been enabled to shout, "Eureka!" We want the best results of 
production in every possible line of industry, and we have found it in 
corporate Combination. This is the way that is easiest and cheapest, 
and we will adopt it both here and now. It applies to individuals, to 
productions, to distributions, to developments — in a word, to indus- 
try. The great corporations that are even now carrying on all the 
great enterprises of the world' are but the epitome of that greater 
corporation of all the people. The greater, the larger the business, 
the greater the gain, is a business axiom. Business men will soon 
see — they see now, judge — that the little billion-dollar syndicates or 
trusts are grinding upon, wearing each other out, by the friction of 
events. This fact compels all to think of a common agreement as 
to production, distribution, prices, etc. All these make the People's 
Industrial Combine desirable, agreeable, necessary. What better 
way could be devised to manipulate the envy of innocent ignorance 
of the child of any age or size and the avarice of the greedy. 
Legal restraint, if it is right to restrain at all, is too feeble to oppose 
co-operation. The voice of Labor will forever be inappeasable, 
and justly so, until it gets all its own productions. The fight can 
never be declared off until labor gets it all and the good sense of 
law demands that we make the inevitable surrender on the splendid 
terms of the Combine. 




lVha.t Effect will the Industrial Combine Ha-ve 
on the Cla^sses of Men? 

Why not wake up now to the fact that we are really separate, 
ind'ependent men? It is an attainable and grand thing to become 
the son of God. It is also attainable and a grand thing to be a 
man; we are, perforce of circumstances over which we have no con- 
trol, animals. But by a planning, in the eternal fitness of things, we 
aire expected to get out of the domain of the animal merely and into 
the domain of men and' finally into the domain of God. Animals 
fight; men co-operate. Which force dominates us, a competitive, 
selfish animal, or the co-operating self-interested man? Which? It 
is as much the right of the atheist or infidel to remember and act 
upon the recollection, that he is expected by a first great designer 
to as definitely take and occupy a position of manhood, and as em- 
phatically, as if he had' really taken that other definite position, "a 
son of God." 

I must diverge from a book on economics just a little, to say 
that if the human aspires to be a man, he can be, and then if the man 
aspires to be a son of God, he can be, and from this height, if he 
will look, he will see that he is now required to "cast up a high 
way," not only for himself, but "the people," also his brothers — a 
tangible, natural business way. an industrial way, flesh-and-blood 
way, yet a Christ way, a "whatsoever ye would" way — in a word, a 
manly way, for "his people"; not only for the few now on this high- 
way, but build it out, up and on, and then another can see that your 
invitation carries with it a beautiful consistency, a delightful asso- 
ciation, an enchanting pathway. But if you compete with him, fight 
hmi never so blandly; take even a nickel that he has earned and is 
entitled to, and he will spurn you and call your religion in ques- 
tion; also whether there be any "highway of holiness" that your 
business condiuct with him so cruelly contradicts. Excuse this di- 
vergence, but I entreat you to remember that there is a God and 
that he wants you and you must not be or become a disbeliever, be- 
ca'use we, his professed followers, do not act in our business rela- 
tions as his vice-regents, but you help us to work out a plan of 
business procedure actuated by self-interest, "the sumnium bonum" 
• of manhood, uncontaminated by the brutal instinct of selfishness. 

That I believe, that somebody has asked God to take the helm 
of 'our ship oi state, now Lost in the fog of this Labr question, and 
that He has consented to d!o it, though He may not sail my way, 
nor yet thy way, but we can all, saint and sinner, feel the better 
pleased that it is a safe way if He is at the helm. 

Work in itself is not repulsive to us; the being denied the right 
of choice of occupation and being compelled to do more than our 
fair share of it, is the rub. It seems to have been the delight of 
competition to divide society up into classes, then set them to 
fighting class against class, then to fighting among themselves for 
a lion's share and then to snarling all around until their faces were 
so disfigured by it that one would hardly know that they were even 



118 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

distant relations of (possibly not) the sons of God. The insanity of 
class-fighting was seen by a few a long time ago, and they put up a 
flag or true, had a consultation, and agreed to unite their interests, 
combine and) work together. This smoothed out a few wrinkles of 
the face, of the few, but not all, for there was still a feeling of 
hatred against other classes, other combines, and the growlers 
growled on, mad because combinations had helped others as well 
as themselves, yet they could not see any way to prevent that, and 
reluctantly agreed to it. And slowly one combine has united with 
another combine, to the benefit of all includled, but, mark you, to 
the detriment, in most instances, of those not included; then they 
growled, and soon it increased to a roar, a/nd anti-trusts, anti- 
combines and anti-monopolies filled the air, and the atmosphere 
was blue with anathemas, but monopolies and trusts and combines 
had now dropped onto the combination, and so moved steadily up 
and on growing even under persecution because they had some ele- 
ments of right in them, above them and below them, until now we 
stand appalled in their majestic presence, and in the hush ask our- 
selves. "What can we do?" and as we try to think, something 
say, '"This way, this is the way; walk ye in it"; that is, step out of 
- classes into one class, all having a common interest. 

Combine, where the success of others will be our success; glad 
that farmers have improved machinery, and can produce abundant 
crops, as their prosperity is our prosperity; also glad to have coal 
mfners use improved machinery, so as to double their output of 
coal, when all factories, by the use of up-to-date machinery, multiply 
their productions; glad when railroads and other public carriers 
are doubly efiticient and prosperous, as their prosperity is our pros- 
perity; we are in their class, then, and they are in ours; fare is re- 
duced, so that all can ride that wish to, or our d^ividends make us 
able to pay for riding when we want to do so. A universal Com- 
bine of all classes and all productive utilities into one, i. e., undler 
one management! This, in the very nature of the case, must be for 
the interest of all, and ind(ustrial classes are no more. 

It is not leisure that existing laboring classes need, so much as 
it is an equitable distribution, their own share, of the results of their 
labor. A Combine not only yields greater returns by co-operation,, 
but distributes equitably, fairly. "The greatest good to the great- 
est number" may mean a bare majority, thus robbing the minority, 
hence fallacious as a motto; and besides, it is political and cannot 
apply to industry at all. We must be fair to all. 

When there is no pressing need to borrow money, there can be 
no usury; when dividends take the place of wages there can be no 
strikes; when all men can have agreeable employment, there will 
be no tramps. Slavery is defined thus: "Your time is mine." It is 
said* the Fifteenth Amendment destroyed slavery but "Your time is 
mine" still lives. True, men do not whip other men as of yore, but 
they discharge them to starve. The end of one kind of slavery made 
the Fifteenth Amendment necessary. The end of wage-slavery will 
soon come, and will simply make another amendment necessary. 



A Letter to FaLrmers, 

I write to farmers with great hopefulness. They have been the 
•victims of vicious competition and combinations. If merchants have 
to pay more for groceries, dry-goods, etc., they simply charge the 
farmer more; if they get lesiS for the farmer's productions, they sim- 
ply pay him less and the farmers (as a class) cannot help themselves; 
they are the last men on the ditch, as we say here in California, and 
if anybody does without, they do. To be sure, they have plenty of 
fresh air and exercise! While the lives of the farmer and his family 
are susceptible of the purest enjoyment, they are filled with disap- 
pmntments, and frequently real want takes the place of expected 
and merited luxury. Farming is contradictory, not on account of the 
■uncertainty of crops only, but more particularly on account of the 
business methods imposed upon it. I say imposed upon it — yes, 
from the very nature of tilings, the farmers cannot adopt and carry 
out business methods of their own; they are creatures of circum- 
stances. Yet their efforts are to be admired and we do admire their 
courage. But if one is on the wrong road and does not get along as 
fast as he thinks he ought to, ajid so institutes some reform for the 
purpose of removing the impediments to his progress, he goes wrong 
faster and only succeeds in making a bad matter worse. We may well 
wake up to ask, "Where are we at?" The darkey preacher elo- 
quently said to his interested congregation, "Brederen, thar am two 
roads; one leads to hell and the other to damnation." A brother 
spoke out in meeting thus: "What dat you say? If dat am a fact dis 
darkey takes to de brush." Thoughtfully now, if the roads had been 
one competitive and the other combine, as we know them, the 
preacher's blunder would be no blunder at all, but true to the letter. 

We observe men are honest merchants, honest farmers — in a 
word, honest business men, in spite of, and in no sense because of, 
the competitive methods of business as now in vogue. This wrong 
road and all its so-called reformatory branches and by-roads lead 
to inevitable ruin; we must take the road that leads in exactly the 
opposite direction, viz., the highway of the People's Combine. Now, 
this is the verj' same combine, operating for us instead of against 
us, and it contains the basic idea that will benefit the farmer more 
than any other class, when it is adopted. To make it plainer, sup- 
pose all railroad^s were in a railroad combine, all coal mines were in 
a coal combine, all manufacturers of farm implements were in a farm 
implement combine, and each of the other classes and associations 
were in their respective combines; you may be able to see that this 
is possible, for it is, and all by the very same methods now em- 
ployed in forming or organizing railroadi combines, factory com- 
bines, gas combines, etc. N-ow if these combines take in, as they do 
at the present time from two up to a dozen of the railroads, fac- 
tories, or other companies, won't they take in all railroads, all fac- 
tories, or all companies in their line? You know they can, but does 
this solve the ;great problem to our advantage? Certainly not. They 
have done all this organizing into combines for pure self-defense. 
^But what has been the real gain, if the motive remains the same? 



120 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

How much better is society with its war paint on than it was before: 
these preparations for war were made? Little, if any, with a possi- 
biHty, that I say not a probability, of being worse off than if they had 
taken human nature on honor without combining at all. 

Now, it would be worse than idleness to raise this question at. 
all, if there was nothing for the farmer to do in the matter, for as 
sure as you are reading these lines, if we do not anticipate these 
isolated combines by the formation of society as a whole into one 
cmbine as a counterplot, these class combines will be sure to come,, 
and that in sheer self-defense of one class against the other, as self- 
preservation is the first law of nature. We cannot blame them and 
do not blame them. Why spend an age in learning a lesson as 
simple as two and two make four, and that two times two produces 
just the same result, yet one is addition and the other is multiplica- 
tion. We do not need to wait until we are bound hard and fast by 
railroadi, telegraph, or factory combines, all bent on squeezing the 
last cent out of everybody else to give to their own combine. We 
cannot alYord to wait even for another one to form, for while it may 
be just splendid for the ones in them, it is fiinancial death and desti- 
tution for those on the outside; so there is no financial safety on 
the outside. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. 

We must, farmer and all, get on the inside, both here and now. 
The first thing is, do you want to? This letter is written to per- 
suade you that are reading it to want to. I think no business matter 
ever presented itself of a hundredth part of the importance as the 
formation of the People's Industrial Combine, and its formation is. 
summed up in these two words, "want to." Where there is a will 
there is a way, and if I can show you a way, for the sake of yourself,, 
for the sake of your wife, husband, son, daughter, father, mother and 
the seventy millions of our fellow-kinsmen of this nation, have the 
will to do your part. 

I claim your attention. You may say, you wond'er if it is prac- 
tical. The every-day combines that we read about have shown us 
that combination is practical, else how could they combine and' 
succeed? But an idea prevails that it takes a large sum of money. 
Not so, five men, say without a dollar to work with, may form a 
combine to operate their separate mines. Another idea prevails, 
that ordinary mortals, as farmers and laboring men, are not wise: 
enough to run a combine if it were formed for them. This identical 
thing was said one hundred and twenty-five years ago regarding 
self-government, but we have succeeded. I have referred to its. 
simplicity, but if it were even difificult to understand the people 
could understand it; of course they could, if they wanted to. They 
know enough to come in out of the rain. They know enough to 
turrn around and go back home when weary of wandering. They 
know enough, when they fail alone, to get another to help; and 
isurely, these things are as mysterious as forming a combine. Yes;, 
you are wise enough if you want to. But the people would not be- 
allowed to form such a combine — too much opposition by the 
money power etc. Let me answer: If the so-called money power 
sees that it is to its interest to combine, will it not be as likely 
to "want to" as you or I? I have tried to show the capitalists, by 
as kind a letter as I am writing to you, that it is to their interest. A 
fall from the dizzy heights almost, if not quite, kills, but a fall from 
skates is even passed ofif as so much fun — and falling is the rule rather 
than the exception in slippery competition. The rich will and do com- 
bine for safety. In union there is more safety for the rich, as well 
as the poor, and we who are not rich should, by a studied diplomacy, 
recognize both the real or fancied rights of property and the higher 
social standing of its owners (for they are higher, else why do yoa 



FARMFRS. 121 

and I want to g-et rich? — we can afford to "stoop to conquer") and 
so succeed in meeting and disarming each and every kind and form 
of opposition, by kindly demonstrating beyond a peradventure that 
all the people are entitled to a "home; because they are human; be- 
cause every man is our brother; because we are all safer by far 
when living among a people with homes; because by co-operative 
combination every able man and woman can be employed to a sup- 
porting degree; because the principle of the combine was taught by 
the wisest man — the very God' — as being not only the best, but the 
only just business rule of action, not only for the Jews and Chris- 
tians, but the unbeliever as well; and because it appeals toi the com- 
mon sense and best judgment of any and all the people. No man 
can possibly put himself or be put in a position where it is not to 
"his .real interest to do tO' others as he would that they should do to 
liim. The so-called Golden Rule is no religious fad; it is business, 
straight, practical business. Railroad combines are founded upon 
it— do not stare at me, but look at the facts. 

Combines are peculiarly aggressive and will succeed, and are 
absolutely inviting us, the people, to go along with them; we must- 
go. Strikers are peculiarly defensive and will fail, for not only are 
they fighting a man of straw, but they are, in a sense, that very 
straw man themselves. As laboring men we will be foolish to de- 
ceive ourselves longer; then let the watchword be, "Stop the fight 
and combine!" Let me make a prophecy: The exclusion act will 
not be passed. The Chinamen and the combines will have us in 
their power, and our labor unions will exit. If the combines have 
managed to get control of British shipping so peaceably they can 
import a million Chinamen and move on in the even teor of their 
way, and leave us. They have no time to fool away; we must either 
get on now or get left. The emergency is on and I importunately, 
persuade you to act now. 

Look! Manufacturing combines are demonstrating combina- 
tion to be pure business, so we might go on ad infinitum. Can't 
you see, if these isolated combines succeed against the opposition 
to them, how much more and how much better can a combine suc- 
ceed that has no such opposition. We can have it now if we want 
to, but it may be an incentive to follow out a practical mode of 
operations. It is an axiom that society is now supporting, either 
•directly ,or indirectly, every man, woman and child in America; and 
very many of them are living in enforced idleness, too; they can't 
get work. Now, a railroad combine is not formed for its health; 
neither will be the People's Industrial Combine. It will mean busi- 
ness, and it will very quickly say, it is not business to have men idle 
who want to work; and right here let me meet the error and say that 
men and women are not idle from preference. Once give men 
profitable work that is agreeable to them, and all will work and 
thus support themselves, and relieve society of the heavy burden 
that it is now carrying, that is, doling out charity to the unemployed, 
and this burden it can never lay down until relieved by the business 
sense of a People's Combine. We have seen elsewhere that it is 
pure business to see that every one in the Combine is situated in a 
house of his own, thus .reducing living expenses to a minimum; 
that all the employed, to produce the maximum, will work harmoni- 
ously, co-operatively, and not against each other as now; that the 
millions of the idle and unemployed, including the soldiers and 
sailors, be made (partially, at least) self-supporting. Observe that 
there is now no settled method or policy because there is no busi- 
ness head, no industrial system like there is and must of necessity- 
be to a combine. If a man is idle now, it is nobody's business until 
he becomes a vagrant, breaks some law, or becomes an object of 



122 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

cold-hearted charity, and then he becomes a burden upon those 
that do work — "that's not business." 

Then, as I have pointed out elsewhere how we can, if we wish to; 
increase our navy and standing army to half a million, all or nearly 
all living in happy homes of their own near camp and navy yard, 
and by having homes and being husbands and fathers, having 
wives and children to fight for, they will not only fight better, but be 
better men, both morally and physically, and not only that, but self- 
supporting to a large degree; hence there will no necessity in reduc- 
ing the standing army, either on the basis of sentiment or economy. 
This will all come by a simple transfer of our practical business 
sense, from the heretofore heartless watch-word of competition, 
"Every fellow for himself and let the devil take the hindmost," to a 
co-operative combine with a business head to it and practically op- 
erating in the interest of all the people. Is it a good thing? You 
can have it if you want to. Let me observe that there is positively 
no other way than by the co-operative combine. Suppose that you 
farmers could come into control of the government, along party 
lines, or in any way; you would be as tyrannical as the so-called 
money power is now — yes, you would; they are not sinners above 
other men; they simply have the power and use it, that is all. Pos- 
sibly, you would be worse, because the money-power is held in 
check by sometimes asking the question. Will it pay to carry our 
privilege beyond certain limits, because they know they can't make 
money with dead men, they will never quite kill you. It pays to let 
men live and work for them — so you may squirm and twist and study 
and think as you will, there is no way but the co-operative combine. 
It is either that or go on as we are and have been, from bad to 
worse, and nobody can guess where the competitive road will lead" 
us to. 

In referring to the different combines, we intentionally left out 
bonanza farming until now. It teaches us the lesson in farming of 
the century. Study it out for yourself. The profits on farming are 
so small that the thought of multiplying the little profits, as in the" 
bonanza farming, is real good business sense. The .reverse of this, 
that is, dividing up large farms into little ones, is absolute folly. Set 
that down where you can read it every day. The bonanza farm can 
afiford a most skillful and practical foreman, the best improved ma- 
chinery, run by the most economical power and skill, supplies, seed, 
feed and provisions handled at wholesale. Now carry this same' 
idea on up to a combine of all farming under one general manage- 
ment with many expert foremen over what one man can conven- 
iently supervise. This will secure the most competent management, 
resulting in the greatest production possible; with this unite the 
most equitable distribution of production and you have the People's 
Industrial Combine. Now contrast this with a million little farms, 
with few and frequently old implements to work with, the farmers 
being unable to get the new, up-to-date implement, must work with 
the old, at a disadvantage, possibly only having use for a very good 
machine only a day or two in the year. Finally, his crop may fail, 
and he has no other resource but to< live with a bare subsistence and 
next year try it again; or again, perhaps the crop is abundant, but 
the market is overstocked and prices are ruinously low and railroads 
unmerciful. To be sure, an expert farmer here and there knows how 
and consequently succeeds, but not one in ten^ — and not one in a 
hundred gets rich, as you know. If wheat raising succeeds, every- 
body goes into that, and it is overdone; if dairying succeeds, every- 
body goes into that and it also is overdone; and so with other 
things. You say that is the farmer's fault? I am glad to hear youi 
«ay this; for it is true. But did he do it willfully? Why, no; ht 



FARMERS. 123 

did the best 'he knew; he needed some one whose business it was to 
know. The facts are, only a few here and there are practical 
farmers at all, or ever can or will be. Most of them try to do just 
what some one else does. But almost any man or woman can, by 
making it their business, learn to run an agricultural machine, but 
to be a practical farmer requires far more skill and far greater abil- 
ity and I am not blaming him for bis lack of ability. The best way 
is to let the most coimpetent mind direct what to do, and how to do 
it — one whose business it is to know what his locality is best adapted 
to and raise that with skill and approved implements, designating 
also what department of farm work this or that man can do best 
(we all do best what we love to do), and so increase our production 
without over production — and why? Because a supervising combine 
is directing. The captains of industry, the foremen and superintend- 
•ents, know how much of this, that and the other is needed to meet 
the national consumption, and so plan to ihave it produced, and 
stored at strategic points, and when wanted transferred to where it 
is needed with as much precision as your mail. I have expressed 
"help, and none to hinder its effectiveness, even the Postoffice De- 
partment as a great object lesson of what a combine can do and is 
doing, and yet it does not fully exemplify it because of the opposi- 
tion and intrigues of competition, seen in railroad and express com- 
panies, etc. Observe, however, that the government in the very 
nature of things, should not try to do any productive business; it 
cannot, without exceeding its legitimate powers. It is political and 
not industrial. But when once it becomes the interest of all to 
help, and none to hinder, its efTectiveness, even the Postoffice De- 
partment, will be doubly efificient. Why, bless you, it is not little 
farms we need — the more we have the greater and more oppressive 
the competition, and the profits are correspondingly less and less; 
our present "half a loaf" must be further subdivided, and we sink 
into peasantry. Then, again, a farm isn't a home at all — never was 
and never can be — and it is homes I am pleading for. The mon- 
strous mistake is frequently made by men that ought to see deeper 
and know better, that statesmen and' lawyers and doctors, etc., are 
the product of the farm; that is, of the broad acres! Why, bless 
you, a homestead is not a home, for .right in the face of this wild, 
false statement, we find fathers and mothers working their nails to 
the quick and suffering privations untold, resolving in their great 
loving hearts toi save every cent to so educate and train their boys 
or girls that they will be competent to do and be something else, 
and not be compelled to suffer the contradictions of the unaided 
farm. I have said "unaided" farm, because it is just about as rational 
to pay ofif workmen of a watch factory with so many watches as it 
is the farmer with what he makes or produces on the farm. A 
combine, a bonanza farm, if you please, pays dividends to stock- 
Tiolders. and stockholders live on these dividends. The great com- 
bine will do identically the same and the farmer will be no excep- 
tion. To be sure, if in the watch factory a workman wants a watch, 
he can have it, but he does not have to take watches and sell them to 
:get his pay. Just so with the farmer; if he wants some part of the 
productions of the farm upon which he works, he can have it; but 
will not be expected, any more than the watch-worker, to take 
produce and sell it to get bis dividends. That would be irrational 
and unfair to both the farmer and the combine. That would not 
be business and a combine is business personified. No, no; states- 
men, lawyers, doctors, etc., are not the product of the farm; but 
they are mind you now and never forget it, the products of the 
home, and very frequently of the rural home. Let us not only con- 
tinue the rural home, but have millions more of them, all free of 



124 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

taxes, and with positive title direct from the government — little,, 
neat homesteads, but with houses built to order as well as fixed: 
pieces of gi-ound, of suitable size. I have gone over a description 
of homes in other letters, and need not repeat it here, only to ob- 
serve that a rural home need have no connection with the farm at 
all. A farmer's home may be in the city or village, if he so wishes, 
as properly as a factory man may live in a village or rural district. 
Electric car lines, with or without tracks, and under the guidance of 
the business combine, will be so efficient as to practically unite the 
city and country and village into one, as well as to furnish the 
motive power for framing and distributing farm and garden sup- 
plies, etc. The implements of progress are thrust on the American 
people in profuse abundance — in the narne of common justice, in the 
name of humanity, why do they hang on to that old defunct relic 
of barbarism, competition! Why do men persist in smiting each 
other down in financial matters like cold-blooded murderers, when 
we all know it is to our financial interest to lift up and sustain our 
fellows, that they may, in turn, sustain us. We cannot possibly lose 
a cent by combining to lend] a helping hand whenever and wher- 
ever needed. This wicked competition comes especially heavy on 
the farmer; it causes him to seem to have the greatest freedom of 
any class and yet makes him a slave to all the other classes. Let 
all the classes know this: that the farmer is sinned against, rather 
than sinning; although of educated tastes, the splendor of culture 
and refinement is denied the masses of country children. The com- 
bine will give them a chance equal to that of the most highly favored 
of the present rich now under competition. The farmer works for 
all' the people and should have full recompense. It is no more 
rational or fair to have him depend on what he can raise alone 
than it would be for the street sweeper to depend on what he can 
find, and in case of abundant crops it is as unfair to the masses of 
people as a drought is to the farmer when his crop fails entirely. 
You may scorn my earnestness and entreaty if you will, but society- 
is now "between the de\il and the deep sea," being invaded at one 
ertd by wealth, as trusts, monopolies and combines, and at the other 
end we find the worthy poor and the common people suffering m 
comparative silence in one group, disappointed party aspirants in 
another group, the willfully unemployed in another group, 
the vicious from disappointment in still another group, and wealth 
squeezing the blood out of all, or out of whoever it can, and the 
people sick at heart even unto desperation. Both of these ends 
are threatening and dangerous to society. The first needs directing 
and restraint, and it is business to direct kindly and thoughtfully; 
the second needs courage in the right direction, and it is business 
to encourage them kindly, thughtfully and materially. When all have 
a home and a job, a property interest, if you please, in the combine, 
then all will work for its interest, and its interest will be the real 
interest of all. But we must do it ourselves; we cannot and need not 
expect existing combines to look out for us, it is not their inten- 
tion, it is not in the scope for which they were organized, it is not 
their business to do it except forsooth as birds of prey. Yet the 
theory and practice of the combine is right, if it be made universal 
in its application, it must include us in all its benefits. It is also 
business to prevent waste; a combine could and' would utilize waste 
products, for example a sewage farm for stock, gardens, vine- 
yards, etc. It is said that Birmingham England, now derives 
$22,500 from its sewage farm. To be sure in the transitient state, 
the political government will have to assume great financial respon- 
sibility in the purchase of immense private interests (for in our 
efTort to be fair with the homeless poor, we must not be unfair with 



FARMERS. 125 

the rich, that would spoil everything). Let us look at this matter 
fairly. If a private individual gives money for property, he does not 
throw his money away, does he? No, for he has the property in- 
stead of the money paid. So with the industrial combine, the people 
in their corporate capacity, have the property when they buy the 
property, and the bonds will be paid as any other bonds are paid,, 
no mistake about that, so the combine will then, as now, get its 
rights from the political government, and the people will get their 
title to their home from the political government. The combine 
will then, as now. be the property of the stockhold'ers, the people.. 
The political government does not, and cannot properly engage 
in productive business, per se, only through its authorized agent,, 
the combine. The combine does all the business in the interest of 
the whole corporate people, and as the people are stockholders, they 
accordingly work for themselves and dividends naturally take the 
pface of wages, for wages cannot apply when one works for himself, 
but only when one works for another and is the wage slave of 

No matter what our grievances are, or have been, we must not 
be so thoughtless as to chide away our friends by any rashness. We 
can be right andi yet afford to be lenient and eminently just to the 
rich, or to any others who cannot see the end from the beginning as 
we do. But let us work for it, talk for it, vote for it, and vote for 
no one for any 'office who is not a pronounced advocate of an indus- 
trial combine of all the people. We do not ask the people to leave 
their party or their church or to join any new party or church. We 
have no time for party organization or disposition for party meth- 
ods, they are omly political, be they right or wrong, in political mat- 
" ters they must pledge themselves,-to putting labor and capital under 
one industrial management; humanity requires something to eat 
and the comforts and embellishment of a home, today and every 
day, and "Hope long deferred maketh the heart sick." The warfare 
our brothers (shall I say not that we) have been compelled to wage 
for bread against remorseless competition, demands that we take a 
hand now in our own interest and in the interest of the now needy 
victims of competition and snatch victory out of defeat, for to all 
intents and purposes, farmers are defeated now on this industrial bat- 
tle'field, they are goners and are conscious of the fact. The farrti you 
live on is not your own, or if you claim it, it is mortgaged; if not 
mortgaged, it is taxed!; and if by misfortune you cannot pay your 
tax, then what? It's the studied business of the money power, of 
course, to see that you are not long able to pay. Look at it, as I 
have said, broad acres are not a home. The only thing about the 
farm that's really valuable is fhe home or house and its grounds, 
where you and your family live. You may hope that the broad acres 
will bring you and yours a living, but do you not see then that you 
really hold these acres for what they bring and that alone? This 
must prove to you that broad acres are not a home, as you don't 
keep a home for what it will sell for. If broad acres bring only 
money, what better are they to you than a gold mine in Alaska, or 
a pension, or a dividend from a combine; and if these acres do not 
bring you a living, and possibly do not pay the taxes, would it not 
be business sense in you to turn these surplus acres over to a reliable 
combine which is able to plow deep and cultivate and harvest so as 
to produce a harvest yield four times that which your skimming or 
scratching and slobbering (using farm parlance) yield you? _ Farm- 
ers do break up, and some well meaning people say, "By a dispensa- 
tion of Providence." Not so, Providlence is kind,— it is by a dispen- 
sation of capitalists and Feen in the Board of Trade, etc. I repeat, 
farmers are already defeated, — but put it to another test if you wish; 



126 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

let the Grange, Farmers' Alliance, and Fruit Associations of all 
kinds unite against the railroads, or some of the great manufacturing 
combines, and speaking metaphorically, the combines will put their 
thumb to their nose and with a wiggle of their fingers, say, "You 
liave no right that we arc bound to respect." What are we going to 
do about it? Let me advise you to be frank, and to reverse the dis- 
patch of Commodore Perry, after the battle on Lake Erie, and say, 
"We have met the enemy and we are theirs." Well what next! We 
have surely followed the forlorn hope "Competition" far enough — 
anyway, we ought to have stopped such miserable foolishness long 
ago; so while we sit and think, we will call to mind what honest Abe 
Lincoln said, that "Capital is the fruit of labor and could not 
•exist if laboir had not existed first," so we are downed and defeated 
by our own fruits. Stand of? there and take a look at yourself! 

Another thought: The act of signing the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence meant death if the signer was caught by the British, so 
the civil liberty they gave us is no cheap affair, is it? Shall we treat 
it as a toy? It is not only valuable to us because it cost so much of 
their blood, their valor and tht'ir earnest thought, but because it 
really is worth so much to us, and in thinking what could we do with- 
out it, it is highly pertinent to ask ourselves, "What shall we do 
under it?" What have we been doing? — working like Bunyan's man, 
with a muck-rake, sweating, starving, but so busy we did not look up 
and so did not see a crown our good angel held just above our 
heads, having this simple inscription, ''Do as you would be done by," 
that is to say, combine with your brother, unite all industries. Do 
unto others as you would have them do to. you. This, the fundamen- 
tal rule of business life, it came down to us from the Author of light 
and heat and life and love. We cannot longer live alone, we must 
combine; my real business is unmistakably the interest of my brother, 
so why continue to work against each other? Take that crown and 
wear it. Our industrial self-interest is wrapped up in that bundle of 
self-government that our forefathers gave u|s in that immortml 
•declaration. 

Again, the inscription on the crown was, "Do." What are you 
and I here for, but to "Do?" A combine will not combine itself; 
there is something for us to "Do," and as sure as we "Do," a home, 
and a combine in the interest of that home, is ours, to have and 
■enjoy. 

Further, if a man be an infidel, or atheist, or Universalist, and 
•determined to live so to the end of his life, or if he be the very 
personificatiO'U of exclusive selfishness, in the sense of getting the 
greatest possible good out of fife for himself alone, or if he believes 
he is here without his consent and proposes to throw of? all respon- 
sibility on to the forces that brought him and compel them to main- 
tain him while he stays, or if he thinks he is here only to help 
humanity in every way that he possibly can, and then die, as the 
beast dieth, — no Heaven, no hell — or if he believes in both and 
knows that he is going straight to the latter place, or if he believes 
that he was made to glorify God or that he is a free moral agent or 
in any other possible view of this life or the life beyond, the combine 
is not only the best for him, but the only rational system of the 
■every-day life of business procedure. Again, take society, as it is, 
you can call it good, bad' or indifferent; in any view of it, it is to 
your interest to see to it that every man, woman and child has a 
home with a government title to it, and a guaranteed employment 
in the support of that home as a logical and purely economical 
business measure. Never mind the fact that it has never been 
attempted before; no nation on earth has ever attained the high 
position of progress that we have at this very moment. Our civil- 



FARMKRS. ^27 

ization is far beyond any example.' so, we must not be hindered be- 
cause we ha^e no precedent; we need no precedent. A precedent for 
us is impossible in the very nature of the case. As our past political 
history stands out an example to the civilized world, so our progress 
demands that we must take this next step, to which all the other 
<5teps have advanced to us, and made us fully competent to take. 

Humanity obtains what they really want, and I assure you that 
as soon as the people in a republic realize what they want, they can 
take it. The people wanted self-government, they got it. ihis 
political liberty is now an instrument for the people to use m obtain- 
ing thei,r industial liberty. No man likes to have another reprove 
him but may we not take a reproof from ourselves? Have we not 
been too extravagant, too liberal; we have given away valuable fran- 
chises voted for^infant industries, etc. and so on, and let our own 
babies suffer the loss; we have given with remarkable prodigality, 
now to find' that we ourselves need the very things we have given 
away Shall we continue to rob our families and give away about 
three-fourths of what we produce, just to please the capitahst, who 
is really injured rather than helped by our reckless folly? I grant 
vou that competition has been and is so confusing that it is very 
difficult for me to know who and what to believe. Nobody cares for 
us or what becomes of us, as all are compelled to look out for them- 
selves We have not nor can we ever have any interests in common 
under competition. My interest is of necessity just opposite to your 
interest. You don't care for me and I don^t care for you. 1 11 cheat 
you if I can, is back of every trade. This will all be reversed under 
combination. I help you that you may help me; we co-operate as 
industrial stockholders in the same combine, and the restless uncer- 
tainity of how to go or how to do to keep every man we meet from 
taking some advantage of us, will all be gone when your financial 
interest is my financial interest, both of us intent on helping the 
other, as the Christ way of helping ourselves. Don't think we are 
getting religious o.r are onto any religious scheme. Its common 
sense, and if you have got any you will accept the combine, and treat 
your brother fair that he may treat you fair. 

Some change is inevitable. Even if competition continues it will! 
be largely carried on between syndicates. The individual capitalist 
is not wealthy enough to even try to compete; the individual i& 
lost in obscurity and must inevitably sink to a lower and still lower 
level. The people can only preserve their individual identity by 
adopting the people's combine. I want to be optimistic and will 
say that competition mav have served a good and useful purpose m 
teaching the individual to reflect, like stoning the frogs may have 
taught the boys to throw straight, but somehow it dawned on the 
boys one day that it was barbarous business, and they quit it. Is 
it not quite as barbarous to stone defenseless men? and you will 
agree with me that industrial competition amounts to just that. The 
fun of yesterday is cruelty today. Paul says, "And the times of this- 
ignorance, God winked at, but now commandeth all men every- 
where to repent." Acts 17: 30- Because a colored slave in America 
was better off than a free heathen in Africa, did not justify negro 
slavery in America. Because competition was the best that we knew- 
yesterday, if it is barbarous today, quit it. The wisest, I do not ven- 
ture to say the best men in America, have and are quitting it. If 
vve supplant the ompctitive wage system by incorporating and then 
co-operating as interested stockholders living on our dividends m 
lieu of wamts we must succeed superlatively as a .people. Learn 
a lesson from Mr. Morgan's success. Why does he succeed? Not 
because he is the smartest and best man in the world, but because 
of the combine idea. He has simply placed and is placing every- 



128 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

thing where one can manage it. That one controls iron mines and 
the mining, the railroads the rolling stock, the ocean steamers the 
construction plants, giving us a living example on a small scale of 
what the whole people can do when incorporated to do practically 
the same thing on a large scale and for themselves, and from the 
very beginning of production to the last act of distribution and con- 
sumption. Mark you well this fact, Mr. Morgan has succeeded be- 
cause he has supplanted competition, in other words quit fighting, 
and like Grant said, "Let us have peace." I cheerfully admit that it 
is the peace of those and for those included in the Morgan combi- 
nation, but it shows to me the superiority of corporation for peace; 
over competition for war. 

It is said that the average American farmer produces 50 per cent, 
more now than the individual farmer of any other nation. Ameri- 
cans have learned to use machinery just a little, but not a tithe of 
what it can and will be under combination. The railroad can be- 
come the farmer's .real friend and! helper. The United States has 
about half of the mileage of the world. I mention this fact to indi- 
cate that we have a magnificent country, and our people are educated 
up to an ability to adopt self-interest, it not being any greater venture 
for us now than it was for our forefathers to adopt self-govern- 
ment. 




What Effect will the Industrial Combine Have 
Upon Christian Civilization? 

Civilization is the refinement of society. Society is a mixing 
with company in which each can express his wants as well as fears. 
Observe the higher, the more advanced the civilization the more 
the refinement; that is the farther we are removed from savage an- 
cestry, the more we can be trusted and the more we can trust each 
other, remember this fact. 

God seemed to be so anxious that we his vice-gerents should 
get the correct conception of business that He iSent a man (that 
some may be ready to admit that Christ was more than a man) to 
teach and show us how civilization should advance and cond'uct its 
business procedures, and society has so far accepted His teaching 
as to add Christian to civilization, and when we take one more little 
step this compound word will drop the hyphen and Christianization 
will become a welcome fact. Are you afraid of getting it too soon? 
Can you jeopardize business in any way by precipitating into it the 
"golden rule?" Can you suffer loss by it? Some say it will be a 
good thing after while or for posterity; if so, by what mode ol 
reasoning can it be a bad thing now and for us? . t, ■ 

Combination is the name of the highest expression of busi- 
ness order and precision. A trust and be trusted, is desirable also 
on account of its methods of specializing in its business procedures; 
it brings also a relief from the high pressure or rather the intensity 
of business pressure. The absolute confusion of the business future 
must result in collapse, unless the master hand of ordter does take 
the lever. We have gone on with the planless confusion of compe- 
tition las far as we dare. We must substitute the industrial combine, 
it, to be sure, is purely a business matter, yet the incentive behind 
business, the spirit of business, the love for business has such a 
marked effect on character, that it is not only patriotic far us to 
teach our children that industry is honorable, but to make it 
our object to see that it is most agreeable to them. We should seek 
to make it healthful and desirable. _ z^, ■ v 

Christian civilization is a force in itself. There is a Christ be- 
hind it (remember this statement) and it has made progress all long 
down through the ages, but in spite of, rather than because of, our 
bad business methods, and it remains yet to be seen what it will do 
when men become men in fact and not like the brute, next below 
them in power; for the lion's share has come down to us as a syno- 
nym for greed. When once we do treat our brother man as having 
eaual rights with us, because he too is a man, we will be on the 
right road to where we will do so because we are Christians, and 
then the barriers being burned away, we can be consistent as such. 
It is absolutely impossible to be Christianlike now and continue 
this inhuman or brutish competitive system— our fighting with each 
other The combine system being simply humane, if nothing more 
would demand its adoption and practice by us as human beings, and 



130 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

there is not a being made in the image of God that can be consistent 
and' at the same time act like a brute by taking a brute's (or lion's) 
share, if you please, of what all alike produce. If we but only 
glance at the wide and deep chasm that Christian civilization is 
having to bridge over and build, through our competitive inconsist- 
encies, before it can possibly proceed on its way, and then take a like 
gliance at the level plane, fringed on either side by the jewels of 
consistency that the Combine offers, — with such a route as this 
opening up before Christian civilization, what can we not expect of 
its future? Then again, the very first business of the combine will 
be to furnish every one of its members a home as an economic 
measure, as a means of self-preservation. I would have you observe 
this fact, that while we are all proud of the progress that America 
has made, we are indebted for it to American homes, and not to 
competition in business or any political party or parties. Now in 
view of this fact, when all the people have homes. Christian civil- 
ization being the fruit of homes, will increase in direct proportion 
to the total number of the homes America makes, or causes to be 
made, for its people. There is not a thinker among us who does not 
see and believe that, from a business point of view alone. Christian 
civilization is a good thing. Then why not remove the obstruction 
to it, the> nefarious competitive system, by combining toi lend this 
civilization a helping hand? 

We have very many excellent, perhaps ideal, homes now, not 
only among the rich, but among the poor, and all of them in spite 
of the cruel conduct of competitive business. Why not have more 
homes, why not give all not only a chance but the very best chance 
to build up a noble character? Why not have well-bred mothers, 
housed and cared for at least as well as if they were domestic 
animals — ;a home of their own and decent clothes? Then almost all 
women will be well-bred themselves and teach culture and refine- 
ment to their families. In our thought we cannot make a separation,, 
yea, we unwittingly associate the name mother with home. Now, 
into such homes, through such homes and out into society from 
such homes go children, to ever love that home, that mother, that 
society, that si.*perioir rank of Christian civilization. It has been 
said that "Every child is justly entitled to be born well," and let me 
add, "and cultured on up into manhood and womanhood in homes 
of their own." Even a bird is entitled to have a home nest. One has 
asked very significantly, "A.re ye not much better than they?" To 
make it still more apparent that humanity must necessarily have 
a home, let me observe that of all animals a babe is the most help- 
less, and would starve if its friends did not take care of it. So froim 
this beginning, two forces are needful, one the directing, the other 
the restraining; and let me impress it upon you that neither of these 
forces can ever be relaxed or set aside without disastrous conse- 
quences to the child of any growth or age (for all are said to be only 
children of a larger growth). Let us see; first the infant needs to- 
be directed by its family, and later by society, the larger family, on 
up through youth, manhood and old age, and it is as grossly incor- 
rect for society to neglect this so-called man as it would have been 
for the family to have neglected the infant. I do not mean the 
feeble-minded. You who read these lines are too feeble in mind and 
body to stanid up against a stronger man than you; you need direct- 
ing and help now as much as you did in infancy. Again, the infant 
needs restraint quite as soon as it needs directing, and there can 
never come a period in its life when it does not need restraint. The 
infant, the youth, the adult may not think that he needs either direct- 
ing or .restraint, but the better judgment of the parent at the first 
and society later on knows that he does. We mention this to estab- 



CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION. 131 

lish a fact that both the parents and society have a just right to 
supervise as well as an absolute duty of supervision. 

Civil government, which is but crystalized society, decrees that 
one shall not injure another in person or property. Do wc mean it.-- 
Hardly, I think; for if so, why do we permit one. because he may 
fiappen to be a stronger financier, to take away the home of his 
weaker brother, and that maybe according to law? Or to go a 
step farther, why should we permit the strong financier to monopo- 
lize a thousand homes and a thousand families to go without any? 
Has society any right, human or divine, to sneak out of responsibility 
and turn weak financiers over to the tender mercies of the strong 
or able financiers? Yet, that is just what we are doing, and then to 
make contempt more contemptible, we set up the cry of personal lib- 
■erty, to divert the attention of the innocent victims, while we little 
better than steal away their real liberties and send them empty- 
handed out to be homeless wanderers. Some of these may possibly 
recuperate, but it largely depends on whether they have learned the 
tricks of the trade taught by the self-willed child of finance, who 
:shamefully substitutes the right to ruin another for that God-given 
right to "do as he would be done by." In view of these opposing 
forces, I say that Christian civilization is indeed a force in itself, to 
Tiave made or to make any advancement whatever. Ah, the financial 
giant needs to be restrained many times more than he would who 
makes a bad use of gigantic physical force and the industrial combine 
is a thousand times more potent at this time and place than jails, 
prisons, reform schools, etc., as good and indispensable as they are. 
The timid or incompetent financier needs, yea, and must have our 
combined protection and genuine sympathy from the cradle to the 
grave, and that not as an object of cold charity, but rather in such a 
way as to maintain his manhood and self-respect, which the Indus- 
trial Combine proposes to do, and thus guarantee to him the lib- 
erty of the Declaration of Independence, which meant then and 
means now an equal chance, and not to be deprived of his just rights 
TDy a stronger, but sustained as a real member of the family by a 
combine of, and in the real industrial interests of, all. Not the least 
among the advantages of the Industrial Combine is, that it promises 
-time, a disposition and financial ability for culture, which is now 
denied to many in our boasted Christian civilization. Again, the 
home usually teaches the precepts of the Golden Rule to the family. 
'The competitive system of business teaches the exact reverse to so- 
ciety. So what is the child to do as he meets these contradictions? 
What does he do? The common expression tells, by saying, that 
Christian teachings and customs are all right for women and chil- 
dren, but they are not practical in business. Which is right, our 
mothers or our business methods? It is heartless to let competi- 
tive cannibalism devour the finer sensibilities and culture of the 
home and thus neutralize in the second part of life all the accumula- 
tions of the first part, the man or woman having thus lived for 
■naught, and goes to— they don't care where. 

We know that society is not as virtuous as the home. The In- 
dustrial Combine will remove many, if not all, the incentives to vice, 
and virtue will not be for sale. (A word to the wise is sufficient on 
Ihis point.) Change our business methods, so that all will be par- 
takers of needful industrial productions; then the teachings of the 
home can and will be continued by society; yea, society can set an 
■example to the home. 



Young Women. 

A little nonsense now and then is relished by the best of men, 
is an old rhyme and true enough, but this is not the time or place 
for nonsense. We have come to the parting of the way. We can 
go no longer without a definite plan of industrial procedure; plan- 
less, indefinite, aimless competition has liadi its day. We must here- 
after work to plans andi specifications, we must combine. The mil- 
lions of the homeless, including many of us, meekly appeal to us 
to unite, to co-operate, and secure a home, not in charity, but homes, 
of right and our very own. and all that a home can mean, and that 
not because we are rich and deserve it, or poor and need it, but be- 
cause we are human and are humane enough to provide each that 
the other may have a home also. 

So my wish is to- have a heart-talk with the girls and women 
of America with reference to changing our motive in business from- 
the old to a new center, not that we are on the ragged edge of 
national bankruptcy, but it is better illustrated by a young man whr 
suddenly (perhaps) comes into possession of large property, who, 
instead of living at home with his mother or wife, chooses to live 
among the boys andi brag. I will not be accused oi flattery, at 
my age, if I say we have succeeded in our finances as a nation of 
people because of the influence of the good women of the nation, 
and about in the proportion that they have had influence. We have 
here in California very many noble, talented, thoughtful women, 
but the proportion of the women to the men is much less than in- 
the Atlantic and Middle States. This perhaps explains why our men 
are nioTe vacillating and up and down in business matters here than 
in the East, where the women are found in greater proportion, and 
probably having greater influence, and so steady the unsteady hearts 
of men in business affairs. We all know that its not an infrequent 
occurrence that after young men have been too fast in finances and' 
come, or find that they are coming, to financial grief, they may then 
seek the counsel of mother or wife, and to the advantage of both. 
Though women do not wish to command, yet they have an in- 
tuition, a sixth sense, an inborn power to govern the man. As tv 
the men of America, they are just now in the dizzy heights of a 
financial uncertainty, and at this crisis women are needed as never 
befoce. Do not be so superficial here as to chatter about female 
suffrage or a political office as a means to an end, but go deeper than 
that. Female suffrage will of course be a rational sequence of indius- 
■ trial equality, but it's only incidental and unimportant in comparison 
with the great and overshadowing attainment of the new era tht 
new center of business po.ver, "The Combine." actuated by self-in 
terest of all, adult voting cannot be abridged! by sex in industrial 
matters, and so will come without seeking for it at all, never fear. 
Can you think for a moment that if a railroad combine, for example, 
had women in it as stockholders that these women would not vote?' 
To' ask the question is 5i't to answer it in the affirmative. Pardon 
me for this digression, but it seemed a good opportunity to dispose 



YOUNG WOMEN. 133* 

of this question of voting. Political office or voting is but a sinecure 
in comparison with industrial voting and office. 

I am conscious that every woman will stop to listen if there is 
a home in the subject under discussion, and if the how to get and 
keep it is within her reach she will start at once and pursue it to its 
happy realization; (May it not be that Jesus said "Many mansions"' 
because it would have a real fascination for woimen^) To convince 
you that I am not offering you a myth, allow me to refer you to 
a fact upon which we can all rely. (I am speaking, mind you, of" 
a home really of your very own, and in the sense of a house of walls 
and ceilings and doors, one that took labor to build, the very same 
kind of labor that makes or creates capital, a literal home,, and not 
a figure of speech.) The 'act referred to is. that the best financiers, 
made of the best thinkers along financial lines of thought, are- 
combining now; so we may well take a lesson from such thinkers as- 
these and profit by it, especially as their methods are found: by in- 
vestigation to correspond with and fit into the best financial auth- 
ority, (for imhination does ft into "Do as ye would be done by"'). 
Commending them and their methods tO' us; and what these thinkers - 
are really doing today we can dr^ by consolidating or uniting "ur 
lesser thought (so to, speak) until we grasp the overwhelmingly 
great idea of a people's i^jusiness combine, or a combine of all the 
people. It must necessarily be that if any, you and I might 'be the 
very ones left out — and I want to be in, don't you? So then we must 
make the combine universal in its application as well as its per- 
sonnel, it must take us all in. To be great a man or woman 
must be actuated by a great idea, no greater material idlea can be 
had than the conception of giving every one a home that you may 
have one for yourself, and this is the practical grasp oif the people's 
business combine; do you get the idea? I tarry thus with this idea. 
that you may each and all get it, for it's the starting point, the cen- 
ter, a new world, yet as real as the ground upon which we walk, 
and the way to it as practical as any of the ordinary walks of life. 
The formation of the combine, like that of the formation of any 
corporation, is a small matter after it is once dietermined upon by 
the stockholders. So, if you please, we will discuss the business 
of the formation of this combine only a little further. The impres- 
sion that we are financially unable to form a combine is so' wide 
spread that many are disposed to dismiss it and drop back into 
the old rut from sheer despondency, though they know there is 
nothing to go back to. They may say, "I can see the need of it,. 
fejt I can't see that it is practical," or possible. It's an axiom to say 
that the whole of anything is greater than any of its parts, do you 
see, if a part of the people can combine they all can? — that if self- 
interest caused a part to combine, a like self-interest may cause all 
to combine? — if the political government could authorize a small 
part of its people to do business, that it could authorize all of its 
people to do business, — or, in other words, if the government could 
grant papers of incorporation to a few, it could to the many — to all 
the people in their co-operate capacity. But suppose, for the sake- 
of the illustration, that there really was some legal difficulty or 
technicality in the way of the will of the people; how long would it. 
take for the people, in this people's government, to pass an en- 
abling act or waive the letter of the law to conform to the spirit of 
the law? I refer to these things to clear up the minds of any that 
may be incredulous about there not be a practical way (for there is), 
but I am really far more concerned about the will than I am the 
way, so if you please I will use my best efforts to arouse the will of 
the people, knowing that, "Where there is a will there is a way,"' 
especially as both are right and practical. The question is, "'Will we- 



134 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

pay the price necessary to get it?" (that is, with the same spirit, 
in the same way any five men would form a corporation) if not yet, 
you must be brought up to this point, either by your own thought or 
to the acceptance of the opinion of others. I insist that if you are 
not you must awake to an emergency, requiring immediate active 
effort for yourself, your family, your friends, the homeless poor, the 
ever-restless rich, for the present sufiferer, and for the future pros- 
pects of all the people, we must somehow be brought to see our 
rights and then to get them as a duty to posterity, so that the future 
may refer back to us of today, as we refer with fond affection to our 
fathers .and mothers and for what they thought out for us to enjoy, 
they having put in active operation political forces that have been 
nurtured by some of our ancestors all along down toi us, and now 
that we are in the path of progress and stand at the open gateway 
of this new field of industrial emergency, shall we hesitate to enter 
in and thus continue this progress and utilize its full blessing both 
here and now? General Sherman, on his march to the sea, near the 
close of the great rebellion, on the account of African slavery, as 
he looked at the desolated plantatioms, said, "War is hell," and as 
we look into this, that and the other field' of industrial carnage, 
where battles have been fought and lo'st to the masses of the people, 
and the vanquished compelled to make the best terms of surrender 
they could, we, too may repeat the language of Sherman, and just 
as applicable to the competitive fight for bread. Do women like 
war? No; then they don't like competition, for competition is 
war and desolating war, but combination means quit fighting, and is 
emphatically peace, hence a beautiful field where women and chil- 
dren can live peaceably and amicably and at home and have an in- 
fluence as never before. In speaking about war, I will bring to 
notice an interesting solution of the problem that the Industrial 
Combine will cause to be made about our soldiery. I have said 
elsewhere that battles are now fought, usually at long range, that a 
woman could be as useful a soldier as a man, that she could be as 
-expert with a long range needle gun (as some guns are called) 
as she is with her cambric needlle, that if war is resorted to here 
after at all, it will be waged entirely by machinery, and that there 
is no good reason why a woiman could' not run the machine quite as 
well as a man. But we do not wish to intimate nor have it under- 
stood that it is our intention tO' ask women to become soldiers, 
rather, that all soldiers should return in a way to the peaceful pur- 
suits of life. But now, as soldiers are only needed to keep the 
peace, so that to the extent that soldiers are needed at all, a man 
and his wife may both be soldiers, or, in other words, every soldier 
may marry. It is a remarkable fact, however, that the expectation 
--f universal peace should be brought about by the armament of na- 
tions, at once aj^palling in its destructive ability, and staggering to 
the mind of military men themselves. This, strangely enough, 
guarantees peace on an unexpected basis. 

When commerce ceases as a private money-making occupation, 
and exists only in the transfer of supplies needed by the people in 
■their corporate capacity, the Industrial Combine, to 'supply their 
workers with luxuries and products of tropical and! other climates, 
no warring will be necessary to open up or maintain foreign mar- 
kets to give a few men fat jobs, for the voluntary self-interest of 
nations will put war between them (on account of its real destructive 
ability) beyond a peradventure. Woman's education and training 
having been more along the avenues of peace, now that a great in- 
dustrial revolution is to be attained through the arbitraments ot 
•peace instead of war, which will appeal to her conception of righi, 
-she will intuitively feel that being the most benefited andl being con- 



YOUNG WOMEN. ISS' 

suited now at every step of the way in industrial and' political mat- 
ters, she will not only have the greatest freedom to propose meas- 
ures of political peace and industrial utility, but a sisterly ot moth- 
erly interest known only to her in its intensity of feeling, not only 
for her own family, but in that vast compassion for the humiliated 
and unfortunate of our own national household as well as Cuba and 
the Philippine Islands, that the men so gushingly flew to deliver, 
while they at the same time trampled on the prostrate bodies of our 
own sons and daughters. Do you realize that education and train- 
ing have incapacitated very many men for the finer sensibility of 
sympathy. _ Business, success at any cost, with all it means to them, 
has so entirely supplanted conscience, that they can look coldly on- 
destitution and poverty without even one little twinge of conscious- 
sympathy — ^sympathy, that priceless crown of moirals, a sympathy 
that puts us in the place of the unfortunate, so that we may know 
how to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Aye, to 
the women cif the nation, do we look for the sympathy that will 
transform present cruel so-called competitive business into consid- 
erations of justice and mercy. Man has been considered the head 
of the nation, hence ruling it boastingly, with brains alone, the heart 
being left out of the question. Now that industrial combination is- 
the living issue, woman, taking her rightful place beside the man, 
and as the heart of the nation unites with the brain, better results 
will_ follow, andl the nation will increase its helpfulness as a Christian 
nation. The nation need's the good offices of all — mother, sister 
and brother — now as never before; for, in the very midst of the- 
greatest prosperity in its history, plenty of all, yet strangely in the 
control of a few, plenty for all, yet the few who control it are as 
ill at ease as the one who is out of a job, an unrest, like that of the- 
fevered body of a child, has taken hold of the body politic, and needs 
a mother's hand in ministrations of love and thoughtfulness. The- 
business man, lost in the overwhelming possibilities of private capi- 
tal and speculation, becomes dizzy and sick at heart from its very 
contemplation, and asks himself the questions: "What is all this for? 
To where will all this lead? When will be the end?" He needs 
the wife or the sister to sympathize with him andi set him right 
quite as much as does the pauper. Hence, to the mothers, wives 
and sisters of the rich, more than to any other equal number of 
people in the nation, do we look for a righteous adjustment of the 
differences that must from necessity arise in the solution of this- 
industrial problem. So any man, woman or child', taking a posi- 
tion of defiance against the rich, hinders, rather than helps, our 
cause. If we be a Christian nation, we must show ourselves Chris- 
tians, so that our laws may be administered and our industrial pro- 
cedures carried out in such a way as to reflect the image of Christ. 
That this is not now and never has been attempted stands to 
our national shame. Then, again, we are not at liberty to be unjust 
to the rich in our determination to be just to the poor and I am 
thankful that we do not need to be. 

The facts are that women are compelled to remain single be 
cause of the poverty of men, whoi would make and gladly sustain a. 
home for a wife if they could, and wives and mothers whose sons 
are thrown out of work by new inventions of machinery and the hun- 
dred and one other causes are compelled to become bread-winners, 
doing menial work at anything they can get to do. To them the 
work may not be so objectionable,' but the real hardship is in the- 
fact that woimen are thus thrust out to do work at such great dis- 
advantages, and which they are so little prepared to do. As a fact, 
women have shown that they are as willing to work as men, but 
they feel that they should have an equal chance at equal work antf 



136 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

with equal respect and recompense. Have you tried to think out 
how this can be done? Let me here answer that, try as you will 
for any other solution, you will surely come back to Industrial Com- 
bine as not only the best but the only solution. All other methods 
of procedure are but temporary patchwork. Female suffrage could 
not do it alone. Besides personified* capital will never permit 
women to vote. Why? Because now it can sport with either a 
great or small political party, as a child with a toy. Nothing short 
of an uprising of the people in their indlustrial capacity will do it — a 
general saying of each to the other, "I will if you will," and 1 
say again, nothing can arouse all the people but the word "home," 
and' what it means. A great uprising must have a great, worthy, far- 
reaching and positively conclusive object. Palliation, experiment- 
mg or going a little way, expecting to retreat, will all result in sick- 
ening failure. Nothing short of all moving together for a definite 
and overwhelmingly great and worthy object — nothing, in fact, less 
than an honest effort at absolute industrial combination, a monu- 
ment, the justice and magnitude of which will appeal to the heart of 
seventy million people, will avail. Then we may expect, and rot 
until then, to say, and to have it said of \is, America is a Christian 
nation; its civilization rad'iates from a Christian center. To be an 
American citizen, then, like it was at one time said of the Romans, 
■will be greater than to be a king, but froim a far d*ifferent reason. 
As a great movement requires a gr£at motive, so, vice versa, a great 
mctive requires a great movement. We recognize the fact that we 
a.re sons and daughters of great and illustrious fathers, who took 
■iheir lives in their hands with the pen that signed the Declaration ot 
independence. Shall we in the light of their example be less heroic? 
\ye shall I say even cowardly unless we by unitedly opposing the 
reign of personified capital end it. Capitalists are brave men and 
wcmen. So nothing wdl iso recompense them for any loss real or 
imaginary as it may seem to them, as to surrender to foemen worthy 
of their steel, and who will treat them honorably. The proudest 
■emotion that fills the soul of a Grand Army veteran is found in the 
fact that the Confederates were brave men; and the greatest com- 
fort tO' the Confederates is found in the fact that, though defeated, it 
was d'one by the perseverance, heroic bravery and prestige of the 
soldier from the North. Today we have to consider a measure, 
the magnitude of which in most of its bearings, is far greater than 
"the emancipation of four million slaves. So let our united conduct 
"be as valiant and conclusive. 

Our Southern sisters, though never having received a dollar for 
their slaves, agree now, with but few exceptions, that slavery was 
unjust; and now that it is all over, they feel relieved and are glad at 
heart that slavery is gone forever. Listen. It is not now proposed 
by the Indlistrial Combine to confiscate property as during a war; 
yet there is a conquering sentiment going forth from the heart of 
the American people that all men are really created equal, and that 
•equality, if it means all that it ought must be extended to mean in- 
dustrial equality as certainly as political, and a steady, firm, irre- 
sistible tramp, tramp, tramp, onward, to its certain achievement. As 
the decrees of peace are moire positive than the decrees of war, so 
•do these millions march with no uncertain tread. 

Practically, in the Industrial Combine, every wealthy family will 
be left in the undisturbed possession of its own home. The other 
property will be appraised by the commission and' bought and 
turned in part into new homes for the homeless, the productive 
property will be merged) into the Industrial Combine. One point 
•that should not be lost sight of by the wealthy women is, that had iii- 
"dustrial equality been instituted in the beginning of our national his- 



YOUNG WOMEN. 137" 

tory, and kept pace with political equality from that time until now, 
the wealth they now have would have been impossible; and the pov- 
erty that is now so apparent would also have been impossible. So 
if the present servants of the rich are willing to waive any claim on 
them for the difference in wages and dividends, that of right ought 
to have been paid, during these intervening years since the revolu- 
tion, it would not be such a very unfair proposition for those now ■ 
wealthy to waive some, or all of their rights, especially in view of the 
fact that the poor have suffered these years for the want of that dif- 
ference, while the rich have enjoyed its possession without so much .^ 
suffering. But, it is not proposed to take seeming unfair advantage 
of the helplessness of the rich — helples'sness, did I say? Yes; but 
kindly, when once society realizes that it really has them completely 
in its power; for, when once the whole people declare their intention, 
the rich will become as entirely helpless as the homeless poor arc - 
now. But it must be remembered by the rich, that industrial equal- 
ity^ when carried to its last analysis, does not mean poverty for them i^ 
at all, but rather competency for both themselves and the poor to 
enjoy. 

If one is hungry he can eat or enjoy only so much food; if 
one is thinly clad, he can enjoy only so much clothing; and if one - 
is homeless he can enjoy only one home — any more may be by our 
education and business training a welcome incumbrance but it is 
really an incumbrance, and a burden, not willingly borne by many - 
10" the wiser portion of the rich, but turned' over to agents, stewards, 
servants, combines, etc., the wisdom of the rich thus seeking to 
get free from its care and responsibility as much as possible. If 
they will now allow themselves to think about it rightly, it would 
not only be a relief to them, but a Godsend, to have so responsible 
a steward as the Combine, authorizied by the government to step in 
and take control of all their productive property, outside of 
their homes and personal belongings, as well as necessary income. 
Is there anything maliciously wrong about this view? You that 
read these lines know there is not. Yea, may it not even be, if bet- 
ter considered, an act of real kindness? If ambition is a glorious 
cheat, as some one has said, it is about all there is to being over- 
ricfi. But if one is ambitious, may it not be better to turn his ambi- 
tion into a channel where it will work a real benefit instead of a 
hardship to some other person? As it is, and must necessarily con- 
tinue to be, as long as competition exists, and to the extent that 
one gets more than a just and equal share, some other one must 
certainly have less than a just and equal share. Ambition, to be 
learned, works no hardship to another; ambition, tO' be a better 
workman, a better doctor, or a better lawyer, works no hardship to 
another; ambition, to be more polished in manners, helps rather 
than harms society, but it is practically impossible to be just under 
a training that teaches, "Get all you can from any one you can, 
justly or unjustly." The Combine, as a corporation, thus legally- 
connected with and backed by the government, is in a situation to be 
just in its distributions but no individual or trust can possibly be so 
situated. Again, a guaranteed opportunity to work, both to the man 
and the woman, at an acceptable employment, having a living 
thereby guaranteed, will solve very many of the puzzles of life. For 
instance, a couple may .then feel at liberty to marry. A home being 
guaranteed, the marriage of parties of equal financial rank, will 
usually be for love, and not for money, as is too frequently the case 
now, either by the one or the other, and which is usually followed by 
divorce. Another point: both are more likely to be virtuous. It 
has been said that every child is entitled to be well born. The mother- 
will have ample time to attend to the proper training of her child,. 



138 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

which is not permissible with so very many at the present time. 
(Stop and think, how is it po'ssible for a mother now to train her 
child?) A child cannot then be born into poverty, as in the very 
nature of the case, the Combine can have no paupers; and then there 
will be a more universal education. The mother will not, ever and 
anon, be looking into the dismal future, into which her children are 
going; the future will not be dismal, but bright with every star shin- 
ing as now, only with an added luster, the black cloud of private 
finance will only show its silver lining when we look at it from the 
other side. Mark the fact, that paupers, as a class, are simply finan- 
cial failures — that is all, as a rule, and may not be to blame at all. 
Many of them for a time have succeeded in business, but ninety- 
seven out of one hundred of them have finally failed, and only one in 
a million of the people have succeeded finally. It is monstrous! 
That a system will continue to exist for another day, simply for the 
enjoymient of one in a million of our fellow-beings, even if one in & 
million did really enjoy it (but they do not; they cannot; haven't 
the time). It is absolutely preposterous. Then, again, those seventy 
could have succeeded, probably, without any government at all. 
What about loyalty? 

The Postmaster General at one time made the proposition that 
the nation take charge of the telegraph So, of course, coming from 
this high autho^rity, it is not only possible but expedient for the na- 
tion to do so, through a People's Combine, and in such a way as to 
continue individual ownership. And as I have said elsewhere, if 
the government could thus rightfully direct, not own, in one pan 
ticular (the telegraph, for instance), it can surely direct, throu^-h a 
Combine, in every particular. Our American Republic was intended 
to develop this condition of affairs, which it has not yet done be- 
cause it has up to this time tried to run industry as a political ma- 
chine, and so has been diverted from it by the undue influence of sel- 
fishness, and now no method can be adopted to meet and overcome 
its influence, but the uprising of all the people in their own self-in- 
terest. 

Equality of the sexes will change fashion to real culture. Men 
will seek wives, not because of their expensive dress or the money 
they may have but rather for their culture of body, mind and heart, 
and the women will marry the man and not his property. 

At present one-half of the poor have neither time nor opportu- 
nity for culture, and the rich rely on their riches, thus substituting 
money for real culture. As a physician, let me say that perhaps 
four-fifths of the medical practice at present is among the women, 
and that not because they are the mothers of the race, but largely 
because they are unfit to be mothers, made so by the hundred and 
one requirements of society to which they must seemingly conform, 
instead of being as much at liberty as boys and men. in physical 
culture, thus letting nature have its course — yea, even needing 
broader opportunities for moral, mental and physical culture, as so 
much more depends on the mother, at least in the physical repro- 
auction oT the race. In the very face of these things, it is estimatea 
ciiat more women have died from the effect of the sweating systen. 
in the city of New York alone in one month than there were men 
killed in the Spanish-American war. So, is it not better to set our 
women free than to go to war with the outside world, and that as a 
purely business proposition? Our reign of capital is and has been 
a veritable reign of terror, not only to the poor but to the rich, who 
are continually falling victims to its rapacity and the plunder of 
others who are richer. Such is the unrest of the women now and 
if the poor women knew how uneasy the rich are, and the rich onl> 
knew to what straights the poor are driven in mind and heart, as 



YOUxMG WOMEN. 139--. 

well as in poverty and rags, a sympathy so pathetic would kindle 
between them that each and all would! lay aside all animosity, all 
prejudice of rank, andl unite in a common self-interest. 
Let me give you an object lesson. 

It was early in the month of December, but the day had been de 
lightfully pleasant and grandfather had said, "A regular weather- 
breeder." Irene had got liome from the oflice and was planning to do 
some necessary washing, Saturday, as it was, — "necessary," because 
she must attend church the next day and that she must be there an, 
advertisement for the would-be most flourishing merchant of Fairfield. 
as his well-paid bookkeeper. The fact was a business secret, however, 
that he must economize in the matter of her wages by reducing them 
to a bare subsistence, so as to the more successfully compete with 
his two rivals in business; which, taken together with the 
fact that Irene was the only bread-winner for a family ofr 
five, had so reduced) the wardrobe that there was no 
longer a change all around. We are not blaming Smith, 
Jones, and Brown, for they were like three little bugs in a^ 
basket and only room for two, because society has no definite plan. 
no supervisory board to, direct its business affairs. Competition 
demanded that they and their employees should not only tell lies, 
but act lies as they were all creatures of competition, and competi- 
tion as we have explained' in the introductory chapter is simply 
society acting without any definite business plan. So the less their 
success, the more the necessity of show, and; Irene was painfully 
aware of it, and was trying to carry out her implied orders, failing in 
which she naturally expected to be discharged, and yet her little 
charge must eat and wear and have a house to live in; and' in the 
midst of this extremity, oh, horrible, what would she do if she 
should be discharged? She was just saiyng to herself, "Oh, I do 
miss papa so much," for she could see that everything was narrowing; 
in since he had laid down life's fight for bread, a long weary year 
ago, she little realizing that the strain now on her young shoulders 
had carried him prematurely to his grave, for there is a tension at 
which the brittle thread of life will snap. "Life's fitful fever over, 
he rests well." Irene had heard him say he was tired, and she won- 
dered why, but she now bravely compelled herself to rush from the 
ofhce to the kitchen and again to the sick chamber, of her lovely, 
but crushed mother, scarcely waiting for the hand laid in blessing 
on her bead by her gandfather feeble with age. 

When her piano went, her mother hadi said, "Never mind', dear, 
you will go over to Bessie's and play on her's whenever you want,"" 
but now she had hardly time to say her prayers, much less a pleasant 
half-hour in rapturous music on a borrowed piano. Yet it still came 
to her as a privilege that she was working for poor sick mother, 
dear old grandpa, her baby brother, and her jolly sister of ten, and 
so the weeks had come and' gon.e, her many friends called less fre- 
quently, but she said, "It's because I have not returned their calls. 
In fact, I hardly had time to entertain them the last time they did 
call, so I can't blame them. Oh, if the diays had been just a little 
longer so I could have been sociable and yet got my work done too. 
I can see how I am all to blame because I did not have more time, — 
maybe they will come again. If they were like Eugene, for he 
comes right into the kitchen and romps with the children and talks 
to grandpa and mother, so I can work right on." 

The big flakes of snow had attracted the attention of her ten- 
year-old sister and baby brother, as she fondly called him, although 
he was five years old; and Irene looked out thoughtfully and- 
watched them slowly coming d'own as if hesitating to fall in the 
black mud of the New England street, and was startled' with a new- 



"140 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

thought, "Oh, I wonder if I am to pass out of sight so like these 
beautiful snowflakes; ncKt Thursday it will be just a year since we 
• buried papa — "beautiful papa"; but I must be strong, I am strong — 
I know papa would want me to be brave — and as I look in instead 
of out I see I must be brave," and as she turned away from the win- 
dow a bit of sunshine came from somewhere into her heart and' she 
felt as if she must sing — and sing she diid, that cheery bit of music 
as she h^.d learned it in the C. E. Irene had gone bravely to one 
of her father's competitors and asked him for any work he had 
that she could do. He had made her his bookkeeper at a small sal- 
ary as she thought — .but the undertaker's bills must be settled and 
she had no choice but fell into line and the planless struggle for her 
began. Will people always compete one another out of lo-ve, 
out of light, out of life? The all Father had lifted the cloud and 
graciously let a little sunshine in, in spite of man's inhumanity to 
man. This competitor had been told that it was bad luck for him to 
employ a member of a family that had failed in busmess, for all 
such families, luck had repeatedy said, must be avoided, for it was a 
sure sign that whoever showed them a kindness would be sure to 
fail in business too — "everybody said so." 

Irene had been so busy — her salary, her mother's kiss, her grand- 
father's "God bless the child," had kept up her courage during the 
year. Her girl companions of balmier days, for some reason, had 
failed her, but awkward Eugene of awkward age, came in at the 
kitchen door ever and anon. "The mudi or snow makes no sort 
of difference to Eugene," she thought; "he has grown so tall, and 
handsome as he is tall; he is always talking about when he gets to 
be twenty-one. I know I sometimes think I can read him 
better than he can himself — that's him coming now; I know his 
walk. I'll surprise him by opening the door before he knocks." 
"Hello, washing as usual; thought I would come over and lend a 
hand," but Dot and Master Frank captured him and pulled him into 
mother's room with "Here is Eugene," and mother replied, "You 
need not have told me; I would have known it by the fuss you made, 
you must not be so noisy or Eugene will not come any more." 
This had a quieting effect for he was their chiefest joy. Washing 
done, supper over, a few of the articles inust be ironed and 
hung about the kitchen stove to dry and Eugene found himself late 
in the evening in grandfather's chair behind the stove, and Irene 
ironing the things to hurry up their drying. He was not quite sure 
about the propriety of anything he did or said< — if his legs were 
crossed, or his hands were in his pockets, he felt sure some other 
attitude would be better; or if he said, "Please," it was where it 
■did not fit, and he would blush. But until tonight he had felt so 
perfectly at ease with Irene, for had she not always been his school- 
mate, and was it not understood that they were to marry when he 
was twenty-one? Yes, but he found himself blunderingly telling 
Irene what his mother had been telling him a day or so ago^ — that it 
was bad luck to be intimate with a family who had been rich and 
broken up; that his father had said it was a sure sign that tliey would 
break up too, and it made him more and more uneasy. "I told her 1 
did not believe in signs, but she saidl, your family was awful nice 
and especially you, but there might be something in luck after all, 
and wouldn't I for the sake of Father's notion, better get acquainted 
with the banker's daughter? I asked her if Father suggested it, and 
she said he had, and that's what bothers me, for Father's notions 
■ are everything — everybody has to give up to his notions; he has got 
g-ood notions, too; he was telling me the other day that competition 
was, after all, about all there is in life. I asked him what competi- 
■tion was, and he said it was doing any and everything you could do 



YOUNG WOMEN. 141 

legally, and then, if you saw something that you could not do 
legally you must go to work and make a law on purpose for it. Of 
course, anything that was legal was honest, no matter what it was, 
m a business way; andl it was a remarkable fact that one could do 
almost anythmg honestly— in fact, it was almost impossible nowa- 
days to do anything dishonest in business; that the real danger lay 
m being too honest and becoming bankrupt, like your Father did. 
Mother says he's getting so queer, but he knows all the ins and outs 
of the busmess. But really, there is one thing I can't see through, 
since mother told me all that— how it is that I could be a friend of 
yours and your family's when you were rich and did not need a 
friend, and now turn away from you when you are poor and do need 
a friend." 

Her ironing was finally all done and she sat down too sad to 
cry or to speak. The mind is so quick and odd in its flights: the 
fact that she did not try to account for came to her — that, though 
her age was just about the same as Eugene's, yet she was a woman 
and he was but a child, ,yet she loved him too well to be unfair 
(genuine love is never unfair) and, swallowing a lump in her 
throat, she began slowly to say "Eugene, we are the same age, 
yet it's a fact that girls get to be women before boys get to be 
rnen, and then I have been made old very fast by the responsibility 
time has come that yoiu are a man and I must talk to you as a man, 
of this last year. I have tried to seem childlike to you, but the 
time has come that you are a man and I must talk to you as a man, 
though it breaks my heart. As children we talked of the happy 
time when we would have no make-believe home, but a home of our 
very own, but we did not reckon on the inequality of wealth that, 
like a great tree, has fallen across our way. I am not the rich child 
that you promised to marry, but a pauper now, so it is not fair to 
you to hold you to the marriage contract, so I re — I must say it, 
though it chokes me — I release you from your contract." The noble- 
ness of her generous soul couM' not hold her from trembling like a 
leaf in the wind. Eugene sat spellbound); he felt that he was neither 
boy nor man, but that a great injustice existed, he knew not how or 
where. His Father's displeasure on the one hand', and his love for 
Irene on the other, as he sat and thought out how his father could 
and, as he believed! would disinherit him if he persisted in his visits 
to see Irene, and if disinherited, what about a home for her? Two 
paupers stung him to desperation, yet Irene had just told him that 
he was a man. Yes, she is right, I am a man and will ever be a man, 
not only on my own account but for her. He arose and held out his 
hand as gracefully as a plumed knight, and looking straight into 
Irene's eyes saidJ: Irene I am gliad for your sake that you have 
released me. He went out from her presence hurriedly, an enigma to 
her; she had understood him until now, but what couldl he mean, 
he had gone, and were it not for the conscious knowledge that I 
treated him fairly, I could not endure life another moment; but 
f must be brave for mother, grandpa, Franky and Dot. Papa would 
want me tO' be brave, and I will. 

A little planning, so easily done by society as a business combine, 
will assure every young pair a home and save such breaking hearts. 
Listen: Brothels are filled with just such overworked, dis- 
couraged girls, and) you who read! these lines believe it; and you 
know, if you stop to think, that you are more or less responsible,^ 
Jfou dare not say that you cannot help it, not by the empty "poor 
Irene," but little better than mockery, or by offering insult to in- 
yUry by inhumanly saying, "Such are the vagaries of loive" — sne 
and her millions of sisters are your sisters, too, — arouse, and as you 
hope for mercy at the bar of injured innocence and common justice 



142 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

you must show yourself merciful, for whether you believe it or not 
there is a time coming when you will give all your wealth to hear, 
"Blessed are the merciful," mark you well, "for they shall obtain 
mercy." But I am not urging you to a sacrifice, or to do a doleful 
duty, but rather a most cordial invitation to accept a gladsome 
privilege, to give another a home, that you may have a home of 
your own not only in heaven, but in America. You are human and 
you must act human. The dog in the manger idea is for d'ogs; you, 
sir, are a man, you, mad'am, are a woman. I beseech you to act the 
part of a man and woman; let self-interest, your own self-interest, 
take the place of brutal selfishness, and we will have a real banquet 
instead of a funeral. 

I cannot d'o you a better service than to give you an extract 
from G. K. Morris, D.D., LL. D.: 

"The home is the fountam of life: of physical life, certainly. As 
physical life is at the foundation of all life, it is important that home 
conditions should be favorable to perfect health. This is far from 
being the case. Nearly all the physical ills known to the world have 
their origin in the home, growing out of the general ignorance of 
the laws of health. It is the mistakes and sins of the home in this 
irespect that account for the fact that nearly half the children born 
into the world die early. It is equally certain that most of the 
chronic invalidism, the broken constitutions, the disordered nervous- 
vsystems, by which humanity is cursed, have their origin in the home, 
the violation of the simple laws of health. It is in the home that 
modes of life are taught which give doctors so much to d!o, and that 
create the drug habit, by which the victims of hygienic ignorance 
further poison themselves and! shorten their lives. It seems in- 
credible, when one thinks of it, that, in the full glory of the light of 
the twentieth century. Fife is thus poisoned at its very source. If 
all parents were hygenically wise; if the diet of every home con- 
formed to rule; if the life of every home were ordered in harmony 
with the laws of health, human life would be prolonged amazingly. 

The home is the source not only of the physical life, but of all 
life. There the intellect is born as certainly as the body, and there 
its first training is received. How certain it is that it is in only rare 
instances that prenatal influences have been such as to secure to 
the new-comer its proper intellectual endowment. Its mental ac- 
ti'vities must forever depend upon its brain development, upon the 
quality and quantity of the gray matter. Who doubts that these are 
materially affected by conditions existing long anterior to birth? 

What is not then done can never be as well accomplished, and 
wh'at is not done aright in those vmnoted years that are now in our 
thought can never be fully righted afterward, no matter how admir- 
able later opportunities may be. The stupidity, the dullness of innum- 
erable boys and girls must be conceded to be due to their early home 
life. Had the conditions there been such as it is possible to secure 
for children yet to be born, the dull mind would have been bright, 
the slow brain active, the stupid scholar intelligent. 

The needi thus indicated lies at foundation of our call for new 
interest in the training of those who are to become responsible for 
the homes of tomorrow. In a word, we may say that as are the 
homes of the land, in all respects, so are the people." 

But do you that read these lines of this scholarly man not see 
in them a cause for aggravation, to tantalizingly show this home to 
millions ,of real or prospective mothers, who' know that under ex- 
isting business conditions they will forever be deprived of a home, 
and that by the continuance of these very same forces that have and 
'terally and at heart and seek to hide away in a borrowed shelter, 
to feast only on the visions of a home so learnedly poirtrayed. 



YOUNG WOMEN. 143 

Ah, it is little less than mockery to speak of the home at all. 
and not show these mothers a practical and available way to get it. 
It is a burning disgrace to show a prospective mother, an American 
citizen, mark youi, a pile of straw and bid her go, as we tacitly are 
doing, and that im the very face of the fact that plenty abounds ev- 
euywhere and we know it and she knows it; but such is the brutality 
of avarice, begotten by competitive business, and that, combination 
will surely cure, and it is the only thing that can cure. 

There is no use of mincing matters, now that the trusts and 
combines show us a definite and legal way. We become traitors 
to American Christian civilization to longer refuse to travel in it. 

If every woman is entitled to be married at marriageable age, 
then every married woman is entitled to a home; if not on her own 
iccount then on account of her family. 

Put exclusion of emigration as exclusive as you will (the more 
exclusion the better, until we take better care of our own people.) 
but let no child be born under the stars and stripes outside o-f its 
very own home. Then and not until then will it be possible to 
teach and enforce the laws of health and hygiene that the learned 
doctor refers to. 

Anything short of the Industrial Combine of all the people is 
mere child's play. There is no middle ground. It is either the 
people's industrial combine, or continued competition of, combina- 
tions, with no home, no job of work, no definite plan. Industrial 
chaos reigns. No one trying to help going-going-gone and in the 
sight of the home. 

Life is the supreme mystery of this world! God will not let us, 
His legislators, cheapen life, and then go unpunished Many of us 
do not pretend to be fair, we are lenient with the murderer, but for- 
get the murd'eredl. Slaughter by willful neglect is criminal. I could 
not be so unfortunate if you were really powerless. 

Women of America you hold the keys of our destiny! We talk 
of man's inhumanity to man as though it meant the masculine gen- 
der? I would have you women espouse the cause of humanity and 
act well your part now and to materialize at the next election. 
Speak kindly, modestly, but firmly, definitely. If American citizens 
are to be trained in the home they must have a home to be trained 
in. If the American home is to be all that it should be to society, 
society, this larger family must be an example. If society is tO' an 
example of what a well regulated family should be, it must combine 
its resources, and we then will have the People's Industrial Combine 
in practical operation. 




What Effect will the Industrial Combine Have 
Upon the Soldier and Sailor? 

I am far from believing in the disarmament of our nation. There 
is a better and safer way. I believe that a strong army and navy 
is the best guarantee of peace, so I would make them doubly strong 
by including them as part and parcel of the combine, as parties in in- 
terest. A soldier or sailor may have, and to be at his best should 
have a home, and a wife and family if he choose — can he? Let us- 
see. No foreign nation is financially interested to any great extent 
m this Western continent (that is North and South America), so 
we are not at all likely to meet any of them in war, and, further, it 
should be our policy as a business proposition to only mantain the 
peace, and yet be suitably prepared for war or to repel an invasion. 
A war of cionquest is not any more to be thought of. So now that 
each and every industrial interest must be under one management 
or merged into one combine, which is authorized by the government, 
to receive all and pay all, and as peace is far more economical than 
war, how can we most surely maintam peace with the least cost to 
the combine is then to be a question for all. Probablv to give our 
young men a military education, at least soldiers must have a home 
with all its perquisites and blessings, and be regularly employed by 
the combine in some of its departments of industry, yet may in turn, 
and as often as may be enjoyable to them, to be detailed for field 
duty, for after all soldiers and sailors are men. Let there be half 
a million of these citizen-soldiers if need be, drilled up to the 
highest efficiency, living at home, but in touch with camp, ready to 
go where and when needed, just like any soldier volunteers do 
now. Such soldiers will be the better for themselves and for us 
in that they will be almost self-supporting; better for us in that they 
will have their own personal homes and families to fight for as well 
as their country; better for us and them in that they will represent 
better morals, better culture and refinement; better for us and them- 
selves in that, all things else being equal, married men are better 
physically and mentally than single men, either as soldiers, sailors or 
citizens. What is true of the army is true also of the navy. Our 
time should and hereafter must be considered; and if so, but very 
little of the soldier's time has been spent in fighting and from pres- 
ent indications much less of it will be spent in the future in fighting 
or actual service. It cannot be so uniquely and implicitly carried 
out so that the sailor can be at home as much of his time or as 
frequently perhaps, but he must have a home to come to if he wants 
it, even if he takes a year in a tour of the world. A home to look to, 
to write to, to love and retujrn to, will make him a better, happier 
sailor, and who has a better ri^ht to a home than our soldiers and 
sailors, when in our own ports especially? The sailor in port can. 



SOLDIERS AND SAILORS. 14-5. 

have a home and! employment near by just as the soldiers in camp. 
The strength of the country lies in the strength of the home. We- 
sing of "the land of the free and the home of the brave" and yet our 
braves most of them have no home; nor can they, as it is at present,, 
ever have any. Our people will be better civilians, better sailors,, 
better soldiers, and better men. when they have something as tang- 
ible as a home and family to fight for, and why military men have - 
not thought out sdme plan to take the torpor and dull stupidity out. 
of army life in camp long ago, is a mystery to me; its the bane of 
the soldier's life. I have tried it, and believe citizen soldiers living, 
in a home of their own will take the stupor out of soldiering. Again,, 
the military bearing and' d'rill is conducive to health, and may and wilE 
be included in the school exercises. 



Working Men. 

The working-man is the central figure of the nation, and he is 
and has been a necessity since the decree went forth. "In the sweat 
of thy face shalt thou eat bread." (Gen. 3: 19). And he, instead ot 
gold, must be the basis, the standard of measurement in our book of 
human right as against the "rights of property." But it is not my 
intention to arouse resentment against the rich, for it is shown in 
that chapter that the capitalist is like the laboring man, a victim of 
vicious circumstances, and each requiring the sympathy of 
the other. By establishing industrial equality, both will be bene- 
fited, hence both should. Yea, the time has come when both must lay 
aside any and all resentment and work diligently, faithfully and 
patiently, if need- be, for ihe mutual benefit of all. We are not likely 
to get our just rights until each can see what rights we are entitled 
to. The measures proposed to acquire industrial equality may at 
first seem radical, but with as little prejudice as possible, please go 
with me step by step, as dispassionately as may be, and see if we 
cannot evolve not only a better condition, but a perfect solution of 
the str.'ijned relations between labor and capital. Property in pri- 
vate hands, together with wages, has been and is, we will assume, 
the bone of contention. Labor claiming that as a producer it is 
justly entitled to it, capitalists claiming in the polished phrase, 
■"sacred rights of property," meaning to them all of it if they can 
get it; that property per se is their's, and that labor is only entitled 
to wages, and' that "wages" carries with it the added meaning of 
"only when the laborer works does he deserve wages;" so an 
unavoidable clashing of private interests arises, and labor yields, 
fatally for herself, the field of private property to capital, but makes 
a stand on wages, and her warfare has ever since been on the defen- 
sive, while that of capital has been aggressive, pressing labor down 
to the very lowest wage possible, without forcing labor to strike. 
Sometimes, however, it inadvertently goes too far and labor does 
-strike. Years ago capital would have suffered from these strikes, 
as well as labor, but not so much or not at all now. Soimetimes 
capitalists even now precipitate a strike 'on purpose, as a good 
financial measure, but it is not within the hoipe of this book to 
discuss exhaustively the irrepressible conflict between labor and capi- 
tal, so I will conclude it by agreeing with all sides in this particular, 
that capital has been, is !;ow, and always will be, as matters now are 
going, a safe winner in this v&ry unequal race? AlsO', it is safe to 
predict that capital will always be belligerent when struck and labor 
will always continue to squirm under pressure, and yet go on yield- 
ing, blindly trusting and hoping that relief will come, somehow, 
■sometime, if it only gets the best wages it can by joining a union 
and striking once in a while. It is wages, wages, wages, with them, to 
little heeding that if Paul must be paid higher wages, Peter or some 
other laborer must pay it all. If one in a thousand of the laboring 
<:lass gets property, that's enough for all tO' hope they too will work 
up to it in time, and so be able to desert their brethren for a time 
at least. 

At this point and in this letter we will dismiss the capitalist and 
address ourselves entirely to laboT. Now let me ask confidentially, 



WORKING MEN. T 47" 

as one that has been there, is not ours a most hopeless task?' 
Agiain, may there not be something fundamentally wrong in our con- 
ception of what is really our rights, the rights of labor? Wages 
when paiicf grudingly by a private party, who, from a business pointr 
'of view, is intent on getting the m'ost labor for the least money,.. 
certainly does not loom up, even in the far distant future, as a', 
promising, ideal friendl to us or our families. Some advocate profit- 
sharing. 

So let us suppose your employer should say to you, "I see that it 
is not fair for you to do aill the work and me to get the pay, so E 
will go to work also and Ave will all produce the most goods we 
can and divide the productions equally an^ong us from this time orr 
and not only work for the common interests, but plan for the com- 
•von interest. By all working, each will be interested! in doing his- 
best work and thinking the best thoughts and thus increasing the 
productions of the plant to its highest capacit3^" Mark you hear 
that this amounts to substituting dividends for wages. (Profit- 
sharing has this and* many good points, but has the fatal defect of 
includinig only one class, and being voluntary cannot carry with it: 
the force of law and is entirely too narrow, too limited in its applica- 
tion, in fact no plan or ism. have been sufficiently broad). Of course 
this is only a supposition, but do yoti see any real loss yora will sus- 
tain in such a deal? Is not equal sharing better for you than wages?' 
(I seek tO' get you away from the necessity of wages). Even in small- 
plant, which must necessarily work at an immense disadvantage. 
The larger the plant, the greater the advantages, of course, and. the' 
returns, if in dividends, will be proportionately greater until we get 
up to the greatest possible plant, the industrial combine, which by 
having full and complete control, can make the most of what we all 
produce, and also having control of transportation, can supply us- 
with necessary exchanges to the very greatest advantage of all con^ 
cerned, yet the best of it is seen in the fact that we all will be inter- 
ested and there will be an incentive, an inducement, to do our best. 
We want labor toi see plainly all its own present disadvantages under 
tjie iron heel of wages, and as clearly its advantages in industrial 
equality, and stockholders, dividends, and so become convinced ofc 
having lived, and that it is now living, far below its own privileges, 
and thus compelling their families to do wage or menial labor now, 
and leaving to them an inheritance of wage or menial labor. Whilst 
you know and I know that your families (saying nothing about 
yourselves) are as worthy and with an equal chance will show them- 
selves as vaS'C and competent as others. S'o, I pray you, have the^ 
rourage of your convictions and personally resolve, "As for me, I 
ivill from this time on show moire manly dignity in dealing with men- 
and stand on my rights." 

Tliere is envy frequently, when there ought to be aspiration,. 
between the salary-earning class who represent the capitalist, and 
wage class. The salary class understand that if investments are lost 
or only little profitable, their reputation suffers and their salary like- 
wise. Can we blame them? Certainly not. They, like the wage- 
earner, are dependent upon their job and are liable to tumble to the 
bottom, and in any view of this whole planless ind'ustrial problem, 
there is universal cause for sympathy, and absolutely no cause for 
hatred, and wisdom demands that we get together, combine, and by 
observing, simply obeying the well-known precepts of the Golden 
Rule, can work out an industrial plan of business procedure, which 
it will be to the self-interest of the salary class, the capitalist class, 
the professional class, the wage class, to adopt, and from the good 
business management of this industrial combine, establish a business 



148 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

with sure profits and enough to keep all in material abundance and 
,give character a chance, give character attention, give character 
"time that is now devoted to making some money, and then more 
money, and then all money, if there is any beyond we take our 
character with us, but we certainly leave our money. Character is 
-everything in time andl eternity. "But we have no time," you say. 
And money-making schemes of necessity? or expediency? demand 
that we sacrifice character on the altar to the god money and so we 
:sooni have no love for character and but little character to love. 
Oh, let us co-operate in industry and thus settle the vexed labor 
problem so beautifully that we each will know where at, how much 
and when and what we are to woirk at, so as to do our fair share of 
the Nation's work (the combine can and will have a plan for all these 
things) for which we have already received the dividends. This can 
all be 'done by the provisions of incorporation practically the same 
as the Standard Oil corporation or railroad corporation and 
in no other way. I want you to see that moral suasion can't db 
it, religion is not intended to do it, social democracy can't do it. 
Nothing will do it but business, and financial and business interests 
can and will. It amounts to a personal presence that is competent 
to move the world. 

Very much depends, especially at the present, on diplomacy. To 
be sure, men may differ honestly with us and yet by rare good 
humor on our part, we may also gain their consent to move in a 
matter, even if we do not get them to aid in the movement. So, 
then it is not one of the least of our objects to disarm all opposition 
and as we like to have men give us credit for what good there is 
in us, so we must hasten to give them credit for what good we find 
in them. And suppose a man does swear. Reproof, to be heeded, 
must be skilfully given. Suppose a man does get angry, — it is said 
that a soft answer turneth away wrath. Suppose he has stolen, — it 
can do no good to call him a thief. Suppose he does not always tell 
the truth, especially when his supposed interests are at stake; (com- 
petitive business is polite lying, but lying all the same;) it is certainly 
best not to call him a liar bluntly. Yau cannot gain his friendship 
or reformation either, in that way. Let me tell you we have too 
much at stake in this matter to be offensive to others, in word or 
manner. (We must absolutely quit being exclusive.) Toi tell others 
plainly what we think of them sometimes might be a great satisfac- 
tion, but it will not pay ns to do it. 

So much has been said by clever writers in favor of government 
ownership of this, that, and the other industrial utility, that it might 
be tiresome to many of my readers to go over that ground minutely; 
so we will notice here only a few points. The people's business com- 
bine is akin to government ownership, but is entirely industrial and 
not political. We can produce enough in our shops, factories and 
fields, by co-operation, if exchanged by the good offices of the 
industrial combine with other shops, factories, and fields, to raise our 
average bill of fare to luxury, and supply our wardrobe in elegance. 
Here is a bundle of facts: 

All federations and corporations must be united in one corpora- 
tion. Government ownership is but a painted picture of the Ameri- 
can desire. Corporation is the reality and to be materialized in the 
people's industrial combine. Self-government is a completed entity 
and stands a finished work. Industry is tributary to, but is separate 
and apart from, political government, andl must needs stand on its 
own pedestal. America is a republic, the antithesis of monarchy, 
and so must needs have its own system of industry to harmonize with 
republicanism. Yet government ownership has seemed tn 1k' the 



WORKING MEN. 149 

only way for the miasses of the people to compete with the combines. 
It has not occurred to them toi ask themselves the question, Why 
compete at all? We don't have to compete, we will take them all 
into our combine. Government ownership agitation, however, has 
served a good purpose, it has caused the masses to think, and the 
education has been preparatory and useful to us, and much of it is 
now available. Yet its advocates feel that there is a kind', of uncer- 
tainty and hesitation about it that robs it of its enthusiasm. They 
feel intuitively that it is coupled with a loss, which loss is also hazy 
and obscure. It somehow lacks positiveness, the whole-soul freedom 
of "Being su're you are right, and then go ahead." What is about 
government ownership that has .so attracted the masses? I answer 
only just one thing, and that is co-operation. This is attractive, 
deserveably so, yea, absolutely necessary to industrial existence as 
well as progress, but is government ownership necessary to co-op- 
eration? No, not at all. Can we have this vital necessity, co-opera- 
ition, and yet not have government ownersihip? Yes, certainly, and 
without the shadow of a doubt. So, in giving up our attachment for 
government ownership, we d!o not give up this gem of Christian 
civilization, but we take with us this, its only attractive feature. I 
say these things kindly that I may reason you away firom government 
ownership to a better way. Let us expose to the light the hidden 
evils that caused you to hesitate in having an undivided) affection for 
government ownership. It is found in the antipathy of the human 
soul to collectivism, but more on collectivism in another place. 

Now let us take a look from another standpoint. Competition, 
as disastrous as it has proved to 97 out oif 100 of those engaged in 
business pursuits, is already giving place to the much more sensible 
method called combination, that is sensible for the stockholders, 
and! notwithstanding the fact that you and I are not in it as parties in 
interest, we are more vitally concerned than any others. If a billion 
dollar combine is now a reality, it would not require much of a 
stretch of imagination to see in the immediate future a two, four, 
six or multi-billion combine, and its methods of conducting business 
wouldl probabliy be the same then as now. A single combine will 
soon buy up all the railroadte and thus end competition in that 
•direction (which is practically ended today). 

Railroads now make money handling freight and passengers, 
mail, express, etc. Mr. Blank is now in the lead. Pierpont Morgan 
is too honest, — no squeamishness now, mind you. The regular busi- 
ness tariffs of the roads will be put up to "all the traffic will bear" 
and still they do not pay but barely 100 per cent on the dollar. Mr. 
Blank says, "I must do better than that," and he strikes. Every 
wheel stops. "What madness!" you say. Just wait a month and 
j-ou will see that there is at least method in his madness. He has 
arranged to have an agent at every railroad station in the land to 
buy up everything in sight, when the price gets low enough. When 
ail is bought at his price, every engine comes to life again, and 
productions are distributed and sold at his price. Don't say its 
illegal. Don't say that' it cannot be done — it can and will be, if just 
such men as you and I do not take steps immediately to prevent it. 
You say, "Ah, if it comes to that — if it comes to such assumption of 
power as that, why of course the administration must take control." 
Aye, but do you not see that such a far-seeing man would see to it 
in advance that everything was fixedl in Washington? — that a major- 
ity in Congress, and the Court, would say "We cannot do anything, 
(and neither can they, if these combinations are acting according to 
law), the sacred rights of property etc., Mr. Blank is in the regular 
line of industrial business and we cannot interfere with him." 



150 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

This brings me to consider the attitude of nearly all our writers 
and! speakers. They seem to have reached the climax when they 
tell us to vote some party ticket, just as though capital could not in 
the future, as it has in the past, down any political party and 
nullify amy act of Congress, if need be, or anticipate any decision of 
the Courts, thus setting at naught any desire of the people expressed 
in that way. Do I hear you ask, "Is there no way to prevent it?" 
Capital surely has control of the government, so far as it is a party 
in interest, but there is a remedy. 

It is not reform. We have been trying that for 125 years with 
the results as seen in our present predicament, that a power is 
dictating to our present administration in its various departm,ents. 
What we really do want is active Christian c°ommon sense applied 
to industrial matters, as our fathers did to political matters a century 
and a quarter ago. This is a Christian mation: wince at the state- 
ment if 3'ou will, yet it remains true. Equality in the Declaration of 
Independence includes or anticipates industrial equality. Enemies 
have been trying these years to limit it by saying, parrot-like, that 
it only means political equality, — that and that only, and! they have 
succeeded in making the people believe it until the combines have 
taught the lesson aright. Was not the Declaration rather more 
industrial than political in its final anticipations and ultimate applica- 
tion? When our forefathers signed the Declaration based on "As 
ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so untO' them," 
this meant industrially of course, it could not have meant anything 
less. But straightway, young America took a soar with the Ameri- 
can Eagle, screaming "Political equality," as though that was all, 
neither men nor bird realizing that industrial equality was many 
times more Christian and far-reaching than political equality, which 
served but as introduction to industrial equality. 

As we are parties most in interest, let us be most discreet and 
use all the diplomacy and skill we can possibly bring to bear to win 
men over to our views, for it will require all the people; we camioit 
afford to offend any. Permit me to disabuse the mind of any that 
may look forwajrd to a time when the laboring men as a class will 
have the power. As I said to the farmer, such a time will never 
come, my brother, and it would certainly be unfortunate if it did, 
for it would not settle anything. The probabilities are also that it 
would only amo'unt to exchanging one form of tyranny for another. 
I know no reason why laboring men are not as likely to become 
tyrants as capitalists, who are simply laboring men with money. No, 
we must goi deeper than any class rule — deeper than labor unions or 
trusts. From the very nature of things material prosperity must 
either obliterate classes or includle all of them. Our political nation 
is under one management, so labor and capital must be under one 
management. 

Our ship of State is not drifting against rocks, but, as we be- 
lieve, sailing toward a deeper channel, not only for working men 
but for all. With a united effort relief will come as surely and 
speedily as the morning sun. 

We must appropriate and use all that is beneficial to us. Capital 
has been ethcient, in about the proportion we observe, of its consol- 
idation and concentration and combination. So follow the lesson 
of this fact and it opens into the consolidation of all capital in one 
common whole with all the people as stockholders in a combine, in- 
creasing productions by co-operation many fold and distributing the 
productions of farm and factory at half the present labor and with 
impartial fairness to all. 

Take a lessosn of profit to all of us in studying the facts that 



WOEKING MEN. 151 

business coirporations go straight ahead. Why not? They have a 
right to do so. The State has authorizeld them, legalized them, 
they are constitutional; they need not and do' not pay much atten- 
tion to anti-trust legislation, for Congress can have no power on 
the one hand or the trades' unioms on the other. Clearly associated 
capital has been, and is, a necessity to industrial progress, and 
€veryboidy knows it; andl the Peopl'e's Industrial Combine does not 
propose to soiimehow put the oak back into the acorn by any anti- 
movement whatever, but rather to move forward, to take the maj- 
esty of this oak and use it for the whole people. Look at it fairly 
and cannot you see that corporations have been and are now, in- 
dispensable to OUT personal comfort and happiness? Then we must 
not cut off the nose to spite the face. Ask an anti-trust legislatot 
what frightens him, and he exclaims, "The size, the very bigness. 
What we intended by granting incorporation papers as only for a 
tail to; our political government, wags the dog. See? Some of us are 
seasick from their expressions of excessive cleverness, and I am 
bent on destroying trusts, even if it does destroy prosperity." He 
talks foolish, but that is about all some politicians know about in- 
dustry — well, they are not in the fielld of industry, and so do not 
nieed to know. Now, bow is it possible that political legislation will 
forever seem to think and try to take to itself the cre'dlit that belongs 
to industry alone? Cannot we all see the line of demarcation be- 
tween politics and industry, and that the domain of politics ends 
practically at incorporation. And industry, being thus dismissed 
and tacitly tolid to go it alone, as a boy at twenty-one. so iiidlustrv as 
distinctly began there and carries forward independent ot ponies 
and on its own account. Every item of induistrial business, and the 
credit of industrial progress belongs to industry, and is wrought out 
by industry, and "my" party has no moire to do with it than a last 
year's bird nest. Why, sir, it is the genius of political govern- 
mental law, statute law, to wait until the individual man or corpor- 
ation breaks a law, and then, an^ not till then, does political gov- 
ernment, the courts, apply or come to the relief of the people in 
their individual or coirporate capacity. So we must see that a well- 
behaved citizen or a well-behaved corporation cannot legally be 
molested. Then we conclude the great suffering of the people 
from the unequal distribution of wealth is not amenable to political 
interference at all, and we must get this fact clearly before we can 
address ourselves to where and to what we are to look: far we can 
not enter the forum of industry and be successful leaning on polit- 
ical government. Politics did all it could for us when it opened the 
gate by granting articles of incorporation, and bade us enter the 
field's of industry on our own account. Now it stands as referee or 
umpire to see that we have fair play — that is all. Now that we 
can look no longer to politics or political parties in their anti- 
legislation, but entirely to industry for relief, we dt) well to look 
around us and gather up all we have learned from experience. What 
has corporation done for its stockholders? What can it do? What 
lessons does it teach? And in answer to the question, "What can 
it do for us?" I show \v<hat it has done for its stockholders, and 
you begin to comprehend what it can do for you and me. Our eyes 
rest upon the consolidation of some of the great industries of the 
country, thus ending competition and righteously destroying this 
great false god — 'competition, which is a direct and indirect cause of 
our industrial war, and combination, setting up the true God, the 
"do as you would be done by." I freely acknowledge its Golden 
Rule extends only to its own stockholders. The co-operation 
of the human in the stead of the competition of the brute; the 



152 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

combination of men in their courteous manliness,, instead df strug- 
gling in fight to the death. Aye, the trust principle, the Combine 
idea, is sustaining our industry and is the source of our progress. 

Corporation not only points the way, but leads the way; it not 
onliy points and leads the way, but it lifts up the helpless little ones 
of any age, and carries them by its united and co-operative strength 
into homes, and homes of plenty, too. Such are the poissibilities of 
co-operative industry when unhindered by medldlesome politics. If 
it was necessary and wisdom for our fathers toi separate Church 
and State, so now their sons must separate politics and industry, 
and for the good of both. 

We accept it for granted! that industry has accomplished wonders, 
notwithstanding the hindrances of meddlesome politics, and we hear 
the President in his message say that "it would be both unwise and 
unnecessary at this time to attempt to reconstruct our financial 
system, which has been the growth of a century." He might have 
gone on and said "growth in spite of m.eddlesome politics." I am 
not here to saiy that our financial system is perfect or imperfect, but 
I do say that it belongs to and is the business of industry to recon- 
struct it, and not to politics; and when industry takes her oiwn 
business into her own hands as Combines do, and teach, it can 
evolve a perfect financial system just adapted to industry, regardless 
of whether it pleases some party or not. Meddlesame politics is 
and has been the active cause and reason of the continued estrange- 
ment between, and distrust of, labor and capital When labor 
gets. alone, it will discover that capital is its friend — aye, bone of its 
bone and flesh of its flesh. Not only its friend, but its fruit, to be 
eaten, to be utilized' for its happiness in every way, and) for every- 
body. Politics are all right in their place and will be all the more 
respected if they keep their place. They have no more right to en- 
ter a corporation than a coirpciration has to enter politics. They 
must part company at the door of the Secretary of State. 

So I have no apollogy for appearing as advocate in the defense 
of such a (Corporation. Strangely enough It is already loved by its 
persecutors. I love it for what is really is — a gift from the govern- 
ment—for where it originated, and what it is competent to do and 
become. Because it has suffered in the house of its friends is not 
a just reason for our continued animosity. 

We have a riigiht, legally, morally, and justly, to now accept and 
appropriate it, and the hunger, cold and nakedness of millions ot 
our fellow-citizens appeal to us for immediate irelief, so we cannot 
afford to stand shivering and haggle over the price as we have it 
now in our own pockets, or at our own disposal, but we as men 
must pay it at once and thus relieve the needy. Can you entertain 
the thought that our forefather's powwowed over expediency? No; 
they signed the Declaration because it was right, and fought out and 
thought out the minutiae afterwards. So must we here and now 
declare for the People's Industrial Combine — it is absolutely all that 
is left us, and that as our sacred right — and rely upon the rare 
gooidi sense of our people to woirk out the minutiae as we come to 
them in their onder, much as our fathers did. Nothing will suffice 
but a general uprising of all the people, unhampered by, and inde- 
pendent of, all political parties, all religious denominations, all 
secret societies — in a word, all classes of men and women, intent on 
only one object, and that industrial equality, here and now. Think of 
it; can we afford to let the petty jealousy of a political party, or a 
religious difference of opinion, or some secret society drive away 
one single indb-idual from being a hearty comrade in this move- 
ment so immediately vital to rich and to poor, high and low, learned 



WORKING MEN. 153 

and unlearned? Rather, let all hands be beckoning hands to be 
united in the common good. I trust no one will make the mistake 
of thinking that the People's Industrial Combine is a kin, even a 
forty-second cousin, of an equal division of private property as now 
cc^nsidered. If private property were divideid) equally today, some 
would be paupers tomorrow and others millionaires in a few days. 
A few here and there may not yet fully understand what the People's 
Industrial Combine really does imply. When understoicd clearly its 
reasonableness will not only be apparent, but all will enlist in its 
support; so, in a word, it means a home for all and work for all. 

Not only would it be illegal to sell real property as a home or 
an interest in the Combine, in which and on which our families de- 
pend, but there will be no buyers when all have both. 

It will take a little time to provide a home for all— about as 
long, probably, as it took us to get ready to fight Spain. 

Real power to govern comes to men, through co-operation, 
through persuasion, mind you, and not through lighting. Men in 
their dealings with other men are learning to get away from the 
old instinct of their animal nature to flight, and so, far a man to fight 
nowadays is but to fail, so' we argue that the man who fights capi- 
talists is not up to date. Then, my good friends, you who want the 
government to own and operate the trusts, etc., are right in your 
desires to put a speedy end to competition, but wrong m some 
methods of procedure and pugilistic course taken. The great- 
est efifort of a human life is to maintain, through time and eter- 
nity its individuality. Rich men, with this object in view, are not 
to "blame for it, so let us quit blaming them. The individual we know 
is liable now to be obscured by deep poverty. This we must arid 
«do seek to remedy, not only for ourselves, but also must help 
others to remedy by all of us developing the individual; i. e., bring- 
ing up the manhood, the womanhood, to the dignity of becoming 
m.er and women of affairs. There may be some who will say that 
becoming a stockholder in a combine is too much for such a nian 
to expect, but by entrusting them with responsibihties, tools, that 
they can uise in maintaining their own- individual identity is by no 
means too much, so that they become more and more a significant 
factor in society. To put the individuality on honor and trust him 
brings out the very best that is in him. So we urge that the individual 
must be sustained in every waiy in his desire to own property as an 
individual rather than Collectively as a city, a State, or a Nation, so 
that he be not lost in the obscurity of municipal. State or national 
wealth, just as fatally as he is now in the oibscurity of poverty, and 
as there can be no way for the political government to own except 
to own as a whole government collectively. This is the intuitive 
objection to government ownership and will forever defeat it, for it 
does not preserve the continued identification of the individuality at 
all and we all contend that everything must bend to the perpetuation, 
to 'the special identification and continued personality of the indi- 
vidual; the augmentation of the individual, the man, the woman. 
Again, the government cannot rationally own— that is, in the sense 
that an individuality owns; it is inanimate impersonal; it only 
assumes to control— a method of control. . 

Political government reserves for itself the prerogative of as- 
suming control of any and all property for a time limit, mark you, 
usually pending some court decision or occasionally as a mihtaiy 
necessity hence, temporary in character, while the ownership ot 
property must, in the very nature of things, be considered^ perma- 
nent in character, and so the government cannot own in fee simple 
at all it being a political organism only, so is incompetent to do 
more than temporarily control any property. This of itself sets 



154 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

government ownership aside as well as State and municipal, when 
the real intent of oossession is properly considered, it is inconsistent 
then foT government to proceed! farther than to prepare a way, a 
corporation. What, then, is the log'^cal way for the individual to 
proceed, now that it is clear that he alone is competent to own 
property; alsoi, to still own and come into possession of more of it, 
especially where the- property is of such a character that it cannot be 
tied up in separate bundles, as a railroad. The government has al- 
ready provided a way, and at this very point corporation comes in, 
and for the very purpose of enabling the individual to buy and as 
emphatically to continue this individual ownership. 

This rational way is tried and true and is already here, and is 
legalized by the r/overnment and we need no ot4jer; the propositioin 
is SO' clear and so fair that it ought to be accepted at once as final. 
This answers the question most definitely then. How can the indi- 
vidual be put in peaceable possession of all property?" by saying 
legally, "Let the government's plan be carried out, which is not own- 
ership but an incorporation, composed of each and every individual 
of the nation." This enables the individual in his corporate capacity to 
go onto the market as a buyer to buy from any seller who will volun- 
tarily sell. Observe that force (that some have proposedi) dbes not 
enter the mind of either buyer or seller; force is absolutely foreign to 
a business transaction Now, coupled with this perfect freedom of 
procedure, there must be a sufficient inducement to buy and a like suf- 
ficient inducement to sell, or else no trade can possibly be made. 
Freedom of business procedure is the genius of a republic. All 
thought of driving a law-abiding American citizen or the citizen in 
his corporate capacity as a trust must be at once and forever aban- 
doned' and our undivided attention given to inducements; granted 
that incorporation enables you and I as individuals to buy; so if ive 
can offer present owners a sufficient indlucement to sell, a sale is 
immediate and its benefits are immediate, and the people thus im- 
mediately come into possession of all property (except, of course, 
that which is now considered public property, public lands, school, 
court, State houses, etc.), and will thus be in absolute and peace- 
able and permanent control of all imdlustrial business matters. 

Observe this fact, that we can appeal to political government 
have to wait a long time (as some may say, there is no other waf) 
only when a law of that government is acutally broken, so we may 
for a rich man or a combine of rich men to break a law; we may 
think they break the law, now that they have power and have it 
legally; they are on their good behavior. Some of us m'ay 
not think so, ihut the courts seem to think so and that settles it. And 
they, in the very nature of things, are not sO' foolish as to lay 
themselves liable to prosecution when they can and do have all thqy 
need without breaking any law. Some others, well-meaning men, 
vaguely expect that a time will come when the government can 
legally compel private owners to sell. I refer to this point again to 
say that this really amounts to a contradiction of terms, as a law- 
abiding individual or trust cannot be compelled to sell at any price 
now, and it is therefore useless to suppose that they ever will; so 
no hope of possession comes from that direction. Some others as 
vaguely hope that the government can take possession of trusts, etc., 
by the law of eminent domain, but this cannot now and never can be 
made to apply, for it applies only where private property is needed 
for public use, so private property for private use or public property 
for other public use, a transfer can only be accomplished by the 
free and voluntary consent of all the parties in interest; neither can 
the individual or existing corporation ibe legislated out of, or govern- 
ment legislate itself into, any property whatever. 



WORING MEN. 155 

Again, no governmental body can justly or comstitutionally buy 
property for itself with the intention of entering into competition 
against one of its own citizens. Mark this fact; this is the one great 
reason why the government is about selling its transports. That 
citizen, being part of the government, is thus made to fight himself 
to compete against himself. For example: A city is taxed to pay for 
one of a dozen lines of street railroad; the other eleven lines are 
thus compelled toi pay taxes to buy a line to compete against them- 
selves, and thus they pay their own funeral expenses, which can be 
neither logical, fair or legal. It amounts to government's disloyalty 
to its citizen, which is worse, far worse, than a citizen's disloyalty to 
his government. So, partial ownership is not only illogical, but its 
tendlency is to make a bad matter of competition more and more 
complicated and! worse by causing vexatious delays when we really 
want immediate relief, and as it is impossible to be fair with all the 
railroad owners as citizens by buying out only one railroad, so it 
will continue to be unfair until all the raifroads are bought; so we 
must buy them simultaneously to be fair tO' each and all; and then, 
farther, we cannot be perfectly fair to all the people until all the 
property afifected by all the railroads are bought out. This is the 
People's Industrial Combine. 

Thoughtfully, sir, you that advocate municipal or government 
ownership, "Confusion more confounded" is the real thitherward you 
are tending. Does it not look the darker and the more dismal the 
farther you get away from the individual? I know you are as anx- 
ious as I am to do just the right thing and at the right time. Then 
I beg of you to put yourself in harmony with, and work with, 
Christian civilization, which so emphasizes the individual, and the 
only way of settling this great labor pro'blem that continues the 
individual in its plannings is "the Combine Idea." With this as 
Q basis of industrial procedure, the individual can work out his 
highest possible destiny. I cannot state it too positively that gov- 
ernment ownership can never >he inauigurateid in a republic; it might 
do for a monarchy. Co-operative management naturally carries with 
it individual ownership, for unless we own how can we as individuals 
co-operate? We cannot do it all. It is folly to suppose that the in- 
dividual will ever surrender his right to own property as an indi- 
vidual. With this co-operation attached to corporation, and with 
the inducement of co-operation, and the antipathy that the masses 
have against becoming like a herd of cattle under government own- 
ership, entirely removed, the whole people can be united with their 
own industrial government as they are now trusted with their own 
political government. The mode of operations is presented in other 
chapters. 

Let me say right here that industrial equality of and for the 
sexes extend to and include the equality of industrial privileges— 
that is, a right to vote, hold offices, etc., industrially. Further than 
that I need make no comparison and so make no political claims for 
her, but I believe this right has always 'been implied though never 
carried into effect. But woman is now, if never before, needed in 
industrial matters, and that with full power to act in building up 
ideal homes; for from the very natural formation of Christian soci- 
ety, she, rather than man, will be a necessary element in a home. 
It is difficult for us to coixceive of a home without a woman, so we 
are proud to be able to say that every woman under industrial equal- 
ity can have a home of her own to keep forever. "Work for all 
implies that all should do their just part. That is fair, is it not? Of 
course the aged, the children, the invalid and the mother will be 
wholly or in part wards of the Combine, as they or their friends may 
desire. Professional men will be in as great demand, probably, and 



156 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

their relations to society will be but little disturbed and their main- 
tenance will be as easily ad'justed as that of an army surgeon oi 
chaplain. In fact, any man necessairy to society will gladly be sup- 
ported just as society must (if not one way it does another) support 
all now. And in one sense all will work for themselves more em- 
phatically than now. Some may comprehend it better to look at it 
as universal, practical, co-operation. Of course, those who already 
have good homes will be expected to keep them. For those who 
have not good homes, such homes must be built and provided, some- 
thing like the government now provides homesteads, and just as 
legally ample dividena's will enable all toi supply themselves with 
food, clothing ,etc., as they individually may relish or fancy. In a 
word, the people of a republic can also be trusted in their industrial 
procedures. This is just what the People's Industrial Coim'bine pro- 
pose and it is the natural sequence of self-government and equally as 
r?jtional. 

There is no question but that it may be arranged to supply all 
anen and women thro^ugh their dividends. Observe that if there is 
any preference or partiality practiced, as between sold'ier and citizen, 
it might well be in favor of the citizen, for he alone prod'uce? in 
return, or works, if yooi please, for what he gets, and the soldier does 
not — at least not at present. But there is no possible question as to 
the soldier's rights, for they have been lomg established, and when 
we get accustomed to it, there will be no question of like propriety 
for the citizen. A more perfect system, especially adapted to the 
proper and equitable distribution of productions, and fitting into the 
practical Business Combine will be necessary, no doiubt for both 
soldier and citizen. I use these illustrations as merely representative. 
Practically, men andl women will be enabled to buy all they need', 
and rations will not be thought of. 

Christian civilization has only advanced in so far as it has 
obeyed and lived up to the idea of its industrial equality. Think of 
it! How much interest could Christ take in political equality as it 
touches the world's heart? Some interest certainly. He said, "Ren- 
der unta Caesar that which is Caesar's," etc. — all that it is worth, 
when properly weighed; but how much more does industrial equality 
touch the Christ in precept and example! We hear Him say, "Me- 
thinks these ought you to have done and not to have left the other 
undone." Society must seek to bring out the best that is in its 
memibers. Wages compel a man to work, and so usually he cares but 
little hoy much or how badly it is performed. A just share of the 
productions, a dividend, induces him and puts him on his best be- 
havior. This coupled with a home for all and with every one a 
stockholder in a combine of all the industrial interests of the Nation,, 
will settle the case of industrial warfare, and strikes, with their 
ruinous eflfects, will disappear. Wages will be transformed inta 
dividends sufficient for the needs of the individual, the family and 
society. The standard of comfort will be raised. That share of 
wealth which has gone to useless extravagance is saved or dis- 
tributed alike among all the people, and the dangerous operations of 
the trust are controlled! Every man, woman and childl is put in a 
better position to enjoy the goodl things of life. Their capacity for 
enjoyment is enlarged, and a possible field of thought opened up 
and placed! within their reach, adding mental stimulus as a veritable 
nourishing element in the production of bodily health. The object 
to work as many hours as are profitable produce as much as possible 
during that time, and use all productions to promote the happiness 
of all the people. This is combination versus competition. Fewer 
hours at productive labor will not doubt be necessary — say, one-half 
working six hours in the forenoon and the other half six hours in 



WORKING MEN. I57 

the afternoon, in the same mills and factories. But the nation is 
not so much overworkeid as underfed, poorly clothed and dis- 
couraged biy unrest, uneasiness, or by positive or prospective pov- 
erty Want of heart is even greater than the want of food and 
clothmg— mdiividuality ignored, little or nothing to live for, a cold 
chilly dread of the future— ah, men and women would work their 
nails to the quick and almost any number of hours when having an 
encouraging prospect of a home and continued plenty. Let me be- 
seech again and again every laboring man to use his utmost tact 
and talent to win other men, and under no circumstances, by a cross 
word or unkind! act. chide away a single friend. If any cannot yet 
comprehend the People's Industrial Combine, we must add line upon 
hne and precept upon precept, until it is clear and! plain to all. It 
IS simple if you yourself do not shroud it in mystery; it is neither a 
fairy story, nor yet a dream or a myth. You know, my friend, there 
IS nothing in the whole field of industry more real than a comibine, 
a trust, a monopoly. You have all felt them; you feel them every 
day. And it is also very real that you are left out of them, and so 
are "out and injured"' by them. (There is a way that you can be in- 
cluded) Neither is it a something of the past, or of the dim distant 
fi-ture, when men get to be saints, or women get to be angels, but 
now, like taking hold oif the hand that you expect to marry,' and 
in a very ireal sense call it your hand. Not a ."lookine backward" 
t" It, "might have been," nor a looking forward to when "life's 
f^t'ul fever over," but noiw, in the ever-living, immediate present, a 
material fact, an industrial machine, as real as a combined har- 
vp<;ter in the Avheat fields of Dakota or California, dutifully doing' 
the bidding_ of a man, while children watch and play "make be- 
have." looking forward to a time when they can hold the lever, 
a^d the young men and maidiens more seriously and yet as joyously 
p'lanning for a tim€, when they, without a doubtful shadow of 
ether wealth or the want of it, to ibJight or cast a shadow over 
their [young lives, will have a snug home of their very own. Mar- 
ried men and women already in homes of their own, debating the 
ever-debatable and enjoyable question with the unn>iarried^ — "in 
which is there the most happiness, in the hopeful pursuit of or in 
the joyful possession?" The older men and women in the gloam- 
ing, not figuratively, but are really under their own vine and fig- 
tree, and becoming like the ripening fruit around and above them. 
All are housed from youth to old age, thanks to a little definite 
phnning, actuated by a humane motive, prefigured by the trusts, 
t'le combines and to be made real by the industrial monopoly by all 
the people. 

To change the point of view, it is not enough that our sympa- 
thies are with the under boy in a fight; such sympathy is like 
"sweetness lost on the desert air." We may wrinig our hands in 
helpless agony, as we are and have been doing — simply wringing 
idle hands— but the fight goes on; it is not enough, by a little illy 
directed interference, to take the upper bqy by the leg and yank 
him around until the under boy gets him down, and we say fair 
play, but the fight goes on until our so-called sympathy gives them 
another turn, and still the fight goes on, ad infinitum. What i% 
needed! is a firm grip of two hands holdinig each, and with a good 
healthy shake, dropping each into his own backyard Unions do 
not like to be humiliated; why should they insist on humiliating, 
bringing capitalists to their knees. I come to you with a better way. 

Fighting? Why fighting is not what' you and I are in the world 
for at all. True, we are born animals, but the original designer de-' 
signed that we should develop into men, and when this beautiful 
fact once dawns upon us, there is no longer any excuse for us to 



158 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

continue the brutal instinct to fight, to compete, to grab, to hold, 
to snarl and snap at each other, and when remonstrated with, to 
whine like the cur or roar like a lion, saying there is no other way; 
when existing combines on every hand -throw back the audacious 
•falsehood) into the very teeth of the wiseacre, no matter who he is, 
■or more kindly into the heart of the despondent, bidding "them to 
lake heart again." But a knowing that does not take shape in doing 
is mere rubibish. Remember that under . competition a business 
'.smash-up comes about every ten years. Are you my fellow-laborers 
ready folr the closing down of factory or work-shop or mortgage? 

We are, and of a right ought to be, the architects of our own 
-fortunes and not be dependent upon our employers for food and 
■bread for our families. To do anything as men, we must co-operate. 
■Combination is the genius of co-operation, with it we can solve the 
problem of the age, the problem that puzzles all, from the President 
dbwn. We must act. yet action involves responsibility; assuming 
responsibility requires bravery. Men who are forever asking what 
•will so and so say, have any of the Pharisees (great men) believed 
on him, and narrowly estimating the personal honor or disgrace, are 
■cowards. Shall manly men. "who duty to their country know," 
shrink back into quietude, and let our good ship of State drift, 
moral laggards — seeing the case to be clear, the opportunity appar- 
«nt. But "Oh, horrors, the perversity of the people!" the hopeless- 
nes of doing anything! Ah, dreamy confusion, too lazy and indo- 
lent to think the matter through, the mind is in a jumble, good Lord, 
goodi devil, a hazy ability to say, "I told you so," seems to be the 
height of their ambition. 

The best test of an idea is to put it into practice. We need not 
■wallow in the details of an industrial combine, for enough is already 
■known, for us to move its adoption; it's a definite plan and tried 
ideal, and with a little common sense in its adaption to the whole 
people, will make it even more efficient than it is proving to be to a 
few of the people. Look at the elements in the fight, Federation 
and Corporation, squarely. 

A union, we remind you, is not in the doimain of ind'ustry at all, 
ihence incompetent, but it is rather in the domains of politics or 
•government, if classed! at all, and as we have shown government is 
■perfected already, unions are not only irrelevant as against capital 
-and combines, but not needed to correct any error in the govern- 
ment, for no error exists. It is a mistake to think that industry can 
•gain through a political partv. To prove to you that a union is 
•not strictly in the domain of industry, but rather of politics, take a 
case. A man belongs to the union, and also as a loyal American 
citizen may, toi the State Militia, also; his union goes on a strike and 
some one becomes disorderly. The Militia is called out. The strike 
IS finally ended. The union meets to expel the soldier. He is not 
allowed to work at his trade anywhere in the United States. Why? 
Xiterally because he was a soldier, a loyal citizen. Do you see where 
we put ourselves when we join the union? But until the fight can 
"be declared off, unionism as an effort to take our own part, which 
■we must do, in this confusion, this wreck of business chaos that now 
exists, and called competition, and from which we are struggling out 
into the light, unions needs to be, yea, must be maintained, until we 
can form into line on the equitable basis of the combine. As long as a 
Ao exist and prevent them now; so they will and do sink down 
wage-payer and wage-earner exists, the fight will go on. Both 
combine into one and stop it, but a book could be written on these 
points. r ■ ■• 

I was a master workman in the Assembly of the Knights of 
Labor, the first assembly in the city of Bloomington, 111., was formed 



WORKING MEN. 159 

in my parlors, and from that day to this I have been studying the 
industrial question from the highest standpoint, that of Christian 
civilization, so if you please do not compare me to a "half year 
captain" or a pretender. My heart has bled in sympathy for the faih- 
ilies of the toiling millions of my fellow workmen, for whom no one 
seemed to care, only to nag them and to lead them astray to devour 
them, to eat them up as so much bread. I love them too well to 
deceive them or suffer them to be deceived, if I can help it, and it 
would be cruel to them indeed, to point out the fallacy, the utter 
ii;ability and! possible disloyalty of unions, if I could not offer them a 
sure an fully competent deliverer in the person of the "People's 
Industrial Combine." Its not sympathy, pity charity, we need, ita. 
what we are entitled to andi a chance. If any further elucidation is 
needed, I want to refer the matter back to the hearts and minds of 
union men themselves, and ask them kindly, "What do you expect 
to accomplish in the end?" We know that the ultimate end of, the 
power of a union is a strike, and what is a strike? It is not 
entitled to the dignity of fighting the "devil with fire," but rather 
only just painting things .red). Be serious now. Is it not only a fight 
for a chance to work for wages? Silly men. It's bad enough to- 
labor overmuch without fighting for a chance to labor, don't you 
think so? What cure does a union propose if they succeed? Nothing. 
We come around like a rat in the same hole we went in at — confu- 
sion, worse confused if we mean destruction to the combines. They 
can and will go right on, and your union has just the reverse effect 
0:i them can't ycu see; and your effort proves to be a boomerang 
' and always will, and strongly enough, unions are the only way under 
competition. If you are opposed to capitalists, the end of the- 
union is the strike, and the strike doubles the price of coal, etc., 
hpnce helps the capitalist. If you are bent on injuring someone, 
isn't it poor policy to dance yourself and pay the fid'dler too, or like 
the rich lady that hung herself to make her relations sorry, with the 
result that they whistled at her funeral, and divided her property 
among them. Yea, the facts are when you strike you hit only your 
friends. 

We cannot avoid mentioning another point. It is granted that 
unions by striking can rmally raise the scale of wages. The strike 
car^ses immense loss and suffering to the innocent community as^ 
well as to themselves by the interruption of industry, etc. Can we 
expect the public to forever suffer and permit this game of tit for tat. 
One capitalist has irreverently said, "Let the public be damned." One 
version of a strike is, let the public be damntd. We must be more 
reverent, for the public is King in a repubilic. I d'lo not mention these 
things to nag you, but to kindly point out the hopelessness of fight- 
-ng, for if you should somehow kill capital, the public can, if aroused 
to its duty, handle both unions and employers as a child does a toy. 
I would not take away one little ray of hope, however, without giving^ 
a brighter ray in its place. 

Do you say there is no other way? Aye, but there is. We 
have been sleeping on our rights. Wake up! The truth is, that in 
the fields of industry all productions belong to us, do you hear it?' 
We produce it, and from this time forward let us simply keep what 
is our own, that's all. Let us act with industrial common sense, and 
"be just, before we are generous." Quit working for a thing ancE 
giving it away. Resume control o<i our own business, and live on the 
future proceeds. Live on the high level of self-interest to ourselves, 
by ourselves, and for ourselves; and the o-nly legal thing that the 
general o-overnment can do or need do for us, is to authorize us to 
act legally for ourselves as a corporation, "The People's Industrial 
Business Combine of America." The combine age is coming; it is 



160 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

as inevitable as fate, and the thing for us to do, in fact, the only 
thing we can do is to direct it, utilize it, and let us all say with 
Patrick Henry, who' saw self-government in the war of the Revolu- 
tion, "Let it come; I repeat it, let it come." That the triumph of 
self-interest in this industrial war may be and become the rule of 
action. I not only appeal to you now in the interests of wives and 
children, but I challenge you to choose now the dignity of an 
American citizen and stand for your rights as such. Quit begging for 
wages, low or high, and) a union will become as absolutely extinct as 
a slave pen. 




What Effect will the Industrial Combine Have 
Upon Manual Labor? 

So commonplace, and matter of fact, is the subject of manual 
labor, that I would not introduce it, were it not that some idle people 
rich, poor, or neither, may oppose the industrial combine for no 
other reason than that they will be expected to do their part. I am 
looking to two facts which will set the minds of the timid at rest; 
one is found in the spirit of fairness that is in the hum,an heart; its 
there as a fact, but it may in many cases fee required to be brought 
out, and rubbed up a bit, tO' give it a recognition, a lustre, a beautiful 
appearance, some that have been loafers rich or poor, idle from a 
force of habit, may not only need to see that it is fair, as a proposi - 
lion, but the second! fact will clear up their vision, namely its 
revealed agreeablcness. Listen, only about half of th able-bodied 
healthy people, work now at any productive labor. If all wo-rked, 
this of itself would divide the work in the midUle. Then machinery 
may be made to do twice as much (I put it mildly) as it is doing 
now, so you see that instead of taking you by the collar and making 
you clean sewers, or "rub, dub, tub," its really not only taking you, 
l»ut your brother, your sister, that is now compelled to do the hard, 
the menial, the disagreeable, bring him or her three-fouirths of the 
way up to where you are. That's not so bad. But you are now, in 
spite of yourself, working a little. You may call it exercise, and 
feel diisgraced if any should call it labor. Now if the exercise you 
already take, can be turned by very wise planning into your just 
share of the combine's work, I ask you why should you object to 
the combine; may not all work thus become agreeable diversion, 
not only tO) you but to those who now do it. A young woman away 
from home without money has been looking for a letter for several 
days; finally the letter comes. She opens it in great glee, but, alas! 
no money, — and she is dismayed and exclaims, "Nothing!" Aye, 
love and affection eclipsed for the moment. She feels as if she must 
cry. As her mind takes an active flight all around, it finally gets 
back to the unread letter, and she reads. When she has read it, and 
her father's name at the bottom, not one word about money, and 
as her mind runs over the expressions of his loving heart, she cannot 
restrain her tears. After awhile she reads it again, and away down 
below her father's name, she sees this postscript. "In my love for 
you, my daughter, I almost forgot to say that I sent you a hundred 
dollars in gold by Wells-Fargo; call at their ofBce and get it." So 
we are liable to pass, oh so very lightly, over love, affection, culture, 
refinement, education, home and friends, all possibilities of co-opera- 
tion and combination and light down on this one Roint, Manual 
Labor. Like blue glasses, if we wear them they make everything 
around us blue. Now we should do one of two things, or perhaps 
both,— either take of¥ the glasses, so that we may see things properly 
and more clearly, or cultivate a lo^ve for blue. Blue glasses says, 
among a multitude of disagreeable and unfair things, "Let them 
work, I have to, and they are no better than I am; I just want the 
time to come when everybody will have to work." Why bless you, 
my dear man or woman, please never say that again, if you mean 



162 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

by it thai to work is to make them feel as ugly as it seems to you. 

I beHeve that the industrial combine will instill into your life as a 
stockholder, a sweeter spirit and a relish for agreeable work. Yet, 
I am not going to tell you that work is as good as play, always and 
without exception, as you know it is not, andl I have been trying to 
tell you the truth in a spirit of candor in all these letters, and' this 
last postscript note shall be as true as any. But if one work up 
hill, the very same thing may be called by quite another name, if you 
will get on. the upper side of it, above it. The banter, "I will work 
if you will," helps both the boys a whole lot. 

I think Genesis and) geology agree, so I will refer to Genesis and 
read: "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return 
unto the ground." That's nothing, you say, I know that verse by 
heart. Yes, and you see a man with tangled beard and long, 
unkempt hair and clean little furrows behind drops of perspiration 
that drop ofif his heavy eyebrows. He looks up only long enough to 
nod at your kindly salutation, "Working, I see." You pass on, 
cogitating, I'll never work if I can help it. I dbn't wonder at your 
decision, or blame you in the least. God never intended that man tot 
abuse himself; other loafers like you may have imposed upon him. 
But observe, God did not make man for the sake of having 
somebody to punish. The verse we quoted above is Genesis 3: 19; 
a long time (perhaps) after verse 2: 15, which is as beautiful as it is 
significant, "And the Lord took the man" — lifted him lovingly in His 
great arms (metaphorically speaking) or led him by His hand, or 
lured him by the music of His kindly voice. There is a mildness 
about it all quite foreign to "took the man by the nape of the neck 
and d'ragged! him along and shoived him into the garden and shut 
the gate, with a 'There now, you go to work or starve.' " That's 
competition's way. Then this beautiful verse goes on — "put him into 
the Garden of Eden to dress it andl to keep." Set him down, set him 
down gently in just the right place, in just the right way, at just the 
right time, as if to say cordially, "If there is anything more I can do 
for you Adam, I will be glad to do it." Under these circumstances, 
I can see Adam going to work with the inspiration of a self-inter- 
ested stockholder in the concern, loosening the dirt around the 
potatoes and the beans, irrigating the alfalfa, tying up the geraniums, 
here and the roses there, "Hello, Adam, at work?" "Y-e-s, N-o; 
yes, I guess that's what you call it; it's, — well, these terms are a bit 
confusing. Some call it play, some exercise, some call it a 'constitu- 
tional,' some work, some labor, some manual labor; they're all the 
same to me. I like to do it." "Why do you like to do it, Adam?" 
"I somehow think I ought to do' it; it seems that everything tells 
me I ought to do it. Why, don't you see that's what I was put here 
for to dress and! keep this garden. God kindly made me in His own 
image. I am the embodiment of His best thoughts (Gen. 1:26), 
,ind He gave me dbminion over all the earth; it seems as though it 
is my proper business to see after things. And would it not seem 
a little odd if, in view of these facts, I should tell God I didn't like 
to woirk, or play, which ever you call it?" So' it did seem that 
Adam just liked to (every man, saint or sinner, intuitively feels that 
■he has some necessary part in prodiictive labor), and yet, God had 
not done as much for Adam as He has fo'r you and I. Listen, God 
liked Adam because he took such willing care of the garden, for hear 
Him say (Gen. 2: 18), "It is not good that the man should be alone; I 
will make him a help meet for him." And pray, what is a help meet? . 
Plainly someone to help him dress and keep the garden, so they 
could then hoe two rows of potatoes, or both work on one row, 
or train up two rose bushes or both work on one. "Hello, Adam^ 
how are you getting along by this time?" "First rate, first rate. 



MANUAL LABOR. 1G3 

The Lord knew just what I needed when He gave me this help 
meet" (looking lovingly at his wife). "Oh, excuse me, I thought 
you were alone." "Excuse me, I should have introduced Eve to you. 
You see it never occurred to me that I needed any help meet about 
dressin,g the garden; why I am delighted to do all that; I would 
rather do that than be idle. But you know I keep the garden as well 
as to dress it, and keeping the garden all by myself and nobody to 
talk to and tell how good the Lord God had made everything for 
me, — I hardly know what to call the feeling that came over me, 
loneliness, I guess, — I just wanted to tell somebody. The Lord) 
knew just how to be kindi, and so He made me a companion, a 
wo-man (another man). I had enough monkeys and serpents, Isut 
I did! need another man, made in the image of God (Gen. i:26). So 
keeping the gardten now is quite as pleasant as dressing it." "Well, 
Mr. and Mrs. Adam, I am right glad' you have a garden to keep." 

Please observe, in passing, that God's original order was to 
locate the family (a home if you please), and we woiuld do well to 
carry it out, for it's iboth natural and right that we should get as 
nearly as possible to this original God)-given idea. Adam and Eve 
were no doubt happy in this pristine simplicity and God seemed to 
liave exhausted His resources in planning all things for their enjoy- 
ment; and mark you, manual labor was one, if not the principal thing 
to be enjoyed. (Gen. 2:17.) "In the day that thou eatest thereof 
thou shalt surely die." A death was the punishment, not a word 
said about labor, besides dead men dbn't work. (Gen. 3: 17.) "In 
sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life," not a word said 
about labor, besides we have seen that Adam and Eve liked toi work; 
no sorrow attached to work. (Gen. 3: 19.) "For dust thou art and 
unto dtast thou shalt return." Death. Men live to a ripe old age 
and die and return to dust; but not a word about labor. Mlanual 
labor in itself is no more objectionable than eating, sleeping, talkinig, 
etc., and quite as necessary, so where have we to look to the stigma 
attached tu it? Just open your eyes now and see, for it's to be seen 
in each one doing his or her fair share, this is a principle of 
•eternal justice and, if by combining, we can get back to it and correct 
it, in God's name let us combine and do it at once, and take away 
every menial or false idea, and look at labor in its true light, as a 
real blessing of God. Why, bless you, we like to hear people talk, 
equalize matters, and the menial stigma now attached to labor will 
go like the diarkness when the gas is turned on, and then and not till 
but we do not think it just fair that one should do all the talking; 
w.e like to see people eat, but we dion't think its fair for one to do all 
the eating; we like to have people sleep, but we dbn^t think it fair 
for one to do all the sleeping; we also like to see people work, but 
we don't think it fair for one to do all the working. If we have 
somehow got wrong in any of these matters, let us not only be will- 
ing to do, but really do anything that's necessary to be done, to 
then, will the great war between labor and capital end. 

That labor and play may become interchangeable terms, co-op- 
eration in prodluction and distribution is necessary and will reduce 
the time now devoted to each to a minimum heretofore unthought 
of. Let the mind give itself to the solution of this matter and ways 
and means will all work harmoniously together with a consistency 
none will want to hinder. There must a time speedily come when 
there will be no servile labor in our free country. Labor will be far 
more abundant and productive as free labor — slave labor degraded 
free labor in the South, so now wage labor degrades; voluntary labor 
■with dividends, then sell-interest puts every man at his very best. 



Remedy. 

There is a world of happiness (and happiness is what we are 
after; we started afteir it in the letter to the boys and girls and are 
still in its pursuit) in knowing that we are loved. The bitterest sen- 
sation of poverty is when we realize the fact that we are poor and 
underfoot because society, the larger family, does not love us, they 
would not treat us so meanly, we know they dion't need toi treat a 
as they do. They have abundance now and own the machinery ofproi- 
duction with which they could if they loved us, make room for us 
in the home. We are only objects of their charity now, and we 
resent it: we know it is the very antithesis of love, for who wants the 
object of his love to die? and on the other hand who wants the 
object of his charity to live? The combine does not propose to build 
alms houses or charitable institutions, but it does propose to build 
homes, evidences of love. The combine does not propose to give 
homes to the homeless in charity,, but in love. A man is a fellow-man 
therefore I love him as ,in equal and not as an inferior and so take 
him up by side as dependent upon him as he is upon me and then 
and not till then can we both feel that we are men, with this concep- 
tion we see that each and every individual must own as an individ- 
ual their own home and productive property in the support or main- 
tenance of that home. This fact is fundamental. It is doing, actually 
doing, as we would be done by. 

Much has been well said by well meaning speakers and wrtters- 
in favor of a more general ownership. And we kindly recognize 
their efforts and so do not need to oppose any ism. But rather seek 
to unite than to scatter, to oersuade than to antagonize. But seri- 
ously, have we not agitated this vital matter as simply as an abstract 
idea, and that quite long enough? It has been all right to talk about 
it but talking about and doing are so different. Let us get down to 
business and so accomplish it, do it. There could never have been 
an incorporated company in existence if men had only agitated and 
blandly said incorporation is probably a good thing. You all remem- 
ber the fable of the lark and' the farmer. Business men did really in- 
corporate and at a definite time and in a definite way for a definite 
purpose and started a force that moves the world. I find' no fault with 
agitators. It has been and is good so far as it has gone but friend,, 
don't you see that it must be carried beyond agitation and crystalized 
into law (for we propose to be law abiding). Our government is built 
on a vast and comprehensive plan, that definite plan is called self- 
government. A republic. Our industry to be operative at all must 
be built on an equally vast plan and be just as definite and compre- 
hensive. A plan. A corporation. Observe a corporation is a defi- 
nite, tangible method of business procedure, a link connecting 
existing government to industry, two distinct ideas. A republic is. 
a definite tangible method of government. A republic means that 
the people govern as individuals, (not collectively), a corporation to 
be applicable and properly related to a republic must mean the peo- 
ple own as individuals, as citizens, (not collectively), and as literally 



REMEDY. 165 

individual in one case as in the other, so as to harmonize with and fit 
into a repubHc which ah-eady exists. A corporation does not de- 
stroy individual ownership, but it does enable individuals to go on into 
the open market and buy railroads, steamship lines, coal mines, 
farms, factories, etc., yea, every item and all of every item of prop- 
erty under the flag, and this is the proposition: This is what corpora- 
tion enables the individual in his corporate capacity to do, so please 
do not longer be incredulous, or forever sleep upon your rights as 
an American citizen, but wake up. 

It ought not to require a labored efifort to prove to you that 
there is a state of unrest among us as a people, that must be 
remedied; an anxiety to get forward and out of this swamp of com- 
petition that must be heeded. I have tried on the different pages of 
this book, to show the cause of this unrest and such is my unfailing 
optimism that I see in this very unrest profound encouragement 
of a speedy and radical cure for this competition in business which 
has obstructed advancement in the industrial world all along down 
through the ages, as monarchy has the political world. That there 
does come a time, a transition state, when one condition changes into ■ 
its antithesis or opposite, like the ebb and flow of the tide, is unde- 
niable, so am I convinced by the signs of the times that we are right 
at the end of competition, and just entering the reverse of it, "com- 
bination," Enough have gone on over out ot competition into a 
species of combination to show us that it is good for them, a land of 
promise and to arouse us and to see the fact that if it is good for them 
it. in its defects, it will be good for us in its perfection. That there are 
difficulties in our way and also different from the difficulties of those 
who have already gone over into the combine, we gladly admit, for 
a surmountable dlifficulty is better than no opposition. A faint 
heart, it is said, "never won a fair lady." To be sure, they have cap- 
ital already aggregating jjiillions perhaps, but we have men, which 
creates all capital — if produced capital is combinabJ^., so is the pur-- 
pose to produce with the capital produced add'ed. 

I m'ust not be misunderstood as intentionally drawing a line 
between the interests of caoitalists and laborers for there is really 
none, they are only the different aspects of the same society; and as 
a man cannot get away from his own shadow, no more can capital 
live apart from labor or labor continue to live and not produce cap- 
ital, especially in our high state of civilization. If all capital was 
obliterated today, labor would immediately produce more, so I 
argue that we have som.ething upon which to base a combine far 
more substantial in its character than capital alone, take out the 
intention of an incorporation and what is left? Nothing of value. 
But the statement that labor has no capital, is not true — it has, and 
plenty of it, over and above the existing combines; but our efforts 
will be rewarded, I am' sure, when we make an honest effort to com- 
bine, by seeing the existing combine quick to extend their motto. 
"Self-interest" until it shall read "The business interest of one is the 
business interest of all," and combines will join us in that interest. 
Our civilization has marched on and up beyond all precedents, and 
in spite of the nefarious methods of competition. America's prog- 
ress nothwithstanding impediments, has no parallel in the history 
of the world, and she needs and is fully competent and qualified for 
the assumption of self-interest of the combine this new center of 
power, as she was a century ago for a new form of governmient, 
which was, you will observe, the very antithesis of a monarchical 
form of government, under which Americans had lived up till the 4th 
of July, 1776, to a definite dav and a definite hour of that day and a.. 
definite moment in that hour. 



166 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

As a nation, we have come, in our progress, to a dividing of the 
way. We cannot go on any longer with competition, and we are dis- 
gusted with it and tired of it, both rich and poor alike. The few of 
the rich are learning to establish little coteries of their own, break- 
ing up into little business factions that will ere long sweep down 
like the organized brigands of the dark ages and devour the feeble 
peasantry. Our fall, as a nation, if fall we must, will be from the 
zenith of our prosperity, and at the hands of these powerful busi- 
ness factors. They can and do evade our laws now and they will 
care for it less and less. But we are not going to fall, because we 
are going to combine. It is said that history is liable to repeat 
itself; then let us look into it as we would into a mirror, and see 
if it does not reflect our image and take timely warning. Had we 
room in our book, we would be most happy to take up particular 
nations, but you must do it alone and see the perfect similitude. How- 
ever, as we have risen higher than any, our fall, if fall we must, will 
be more intolerable. Every student of history remembers that nearly 
all the old nations have gone into decline, decay and final oblivion, 
because of one class becoming so indpendently rich and avaricious 
and influenced by their private wealth, ignoring the other, and 
treating them with contempt; and at the same time, the poor, losing 
all interest in that government's welfare, (as we are doing), drifted 
away perhaps into small factions or peasantries, too feeble to pro- 
test. Now, it is so plain that if it could have been planned so that all 

■ pould have maintained property m profuse abundance, it would have 
cemented these peoples into a continued unity of interest and this 
is iust what we now undertake to do with The People's Industrial 
Combine. No more appropriate, and I believe no better, way could 
be devised than to utilize the idea of the familiar every-day combine, 
by makinsr it apply to society as a whole. Of course, there will 
appear difificulties, but by friendly effort, they may and will yield 
gracefully. The facts are that something has got to be done, and the 
time to do it is upon us. We can do it now, for the real benefit of 
all. It may be too late any further on. Then, again, we that are liv- 
ing now want to enjoy its benefits; if it is good for our posterity it is 
good for us here and now and it is practically so near to us and 
within such easy reach, that it is like putting out our hands and it is 
ours to have and to enjoy. Why, a corporation is founded in a day, 
when the stockholders are ready to act, but as we have said they 
might talk that it was a good proposition for an age, just as has been 
dcine without controlling monopolies andl the people yet go on 
suffering. 

We find as a fact that personal liberty is circumscribed, and anti- 
cipated and circumvented, in society and in law, in every way but 
one, and that the most important, the root or great cause, viz., the 
accumulation of productive property to be used intentionally and as 
a power for evil, and evil is the real incentive for accumulation of 
vast property, after all, for not one in a thousand whose hearts are 
set on acquiring great wealth, want it for the good they may do with 
it, but rather for the power over others that it gives to them, the 
opportunity to buy. As boys and young men some may think an 
ambition to get rich is good, but they soon become undeceived. 
They get a start, then on to a snug fortune, then on to a great and 
still greater fortune. They are as powerless to limit themselves, 
being only children of a larger growth, (as they really are) as the 
tottering child. Society has as much reason to show kindness and 
lend a restraining as well as a helping hand, to them, as the parent 
to helpless and indiscreet children. Property, of course, is neces- 

-teary, and there is a magic in private property. It is useful to the 



REMEDY. 167 

individual in that he does not lose himself in society. Everyone 
must sustain his own center; he cannot get away from it any more 
than a man can get away from his own shadow. It is one of the 
proximate principles that go to make up individual life and one 
which every individual intuitively longs for. In fact it is God-given 
and society must needs nourish it. How? By defending every indi- 
vidual in his rights to it. So if it has been proven by past experience 
and observation that some individuals, unaided by society, have not 
shown themselves able to maintain or retain their property rights 
against competitors, then it becomes the plain duty of society, so 
It seems to me, to help them to maintain their property as a part 
of their identity— if not. why not. The kind of personal liberty that 
we have been bestowing upon the individual, that is, liberty to get 
all he can and keep all he gets, or to exploit any and all, has cer- 
tainly proved to be an injustice to the exploited. Then, an honest 
inquiry suggests itself, "How shall we proceed to maintain the 
private rights to property and yet be just to all?" There is too 
intense and over-shadowing an interest at stake in this answer, to 
be passed over flippantly, so if you please, we will be very definite 
m our suggestion, making, as sharply aefined as possible, a tangible 
proposition, and step by step, follow it up to a consummation. It 
may not seem necessary to clearness, but I will sav that all present 
forms of our political government are to be perpetuated and continue 
just the same as they are now, or political government cannot go 
into the domain of ind^ustry, so no political change is needted, 
nothing but for it to go on and give title to every family of a 
homestead, subject to legal provisions in every particular like the 
present government homestead and consisting of, if in the country, 
from one-fourth of an acre to five acres, depending oh the locality' 
a substantial house, lathed and plastered, of say 500 square feet of 
floor space, plans to be furnished by the family if they wish; if in 
a village, 4,000 to 10,000 sqare feet of ground, to be selected by the 
family, and a house lathed and plastered and of 500 square feet of 
floor space, plans to be furnished by the family if they wish. These 
facts and figures are applicable where new homes are built. Persons 
who already have homes will be expected to keep them and n;^ces- 
sary ground in all cases, no matter how expensive, for these homes 
repr'^sent their ideal of happiness, and happiness is just what we 
all want; but if they are not up to the degree of comfort specified 
above, the government through the combine must improve them till 
equal with the new home. Homes do not need to have any money 
value, any more than .other' keepsakes, as they cannot be taxed or 
sold, not only because every one has a home of his own and does 
not want to buy, but because we .are entitled by the Declaration of 
Independence, which is the soul of the Constitution of the United 
States, to industrial equality, it says to "life" (we have it)tO'"liberty" 
(we have it also) and from now on we must live up to having equal 
rights in "the pursuit of happiness." You and I would rather have a 
cottage forever than a palace for a year or two. 

Further, to institute a combine including all productive ind'ustries 
of the nation, to be operated as a corporation or ordinary combine, 
but in the interest of all the people as stockholders, modified so as to 
specify a dividend of one hundred dollars per month as a basis of 
support for a family of five. In this combination all ablebodied' men 
and women are to be employed in whatever capacity is most agree- 
able and is the best suited to both themselves and the combine, so 
that they may not only thus support themselves and families by and 
through co-operation, but each one will be enabled to be a support 
to the political government through the combine. This hundred dol- 
lars will serve also as a basis of private property and also in order to> 



168 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

amicably settle with all present owners. 

It is found by the most reliable statistics that productive prop- 
erty averages an income of three per cent, and taking this as a fact, 
together with the $ioo per month for the necessary running expenses 
of a family of five, we find that each family of five must have $40,000 
to represent their interest in the combine, from which to draw $100 
monthly dividends — so we estimate that each family should have a 
home free of taxes, and $40,000 of private stock in the combine, 
which amount every family of five must have. (Do not be nervous 
about the continued sufificiency of profits to pay these dividends, for 
its labor funds, remember and if America now produces sufficient, 
when every man is competing with and trying to hinder and down 
every other man and about half of the people idle, what will labor 
produce when all work harmoniously with and fcT all, co-operating 
as one in common interest. Now, multiplying $40,000 by a number 
equivalent to one-fifth of all the people or population, will give the 
number of shares which will serve as a basis or unit of all product- 
ive property of the nation, thus changing the basis from the specie 
basis (that we may or may not have) to the number of people as a 
basis or unit. As Mr. Lincoln said, "i'his is a government of, for 
and by the people, a living, moving people, a basis of throbbing 
hearts, and hearts must be the basis hereafter." This basis of a live 
government must be represented by life, and not by our inert, lifeless 
dollar, as good and necessary as it is in its place. A military com- 
mander, on going into battle, thrilled his soldiers by saying these 
simple words: (mentioning their nation by name) "expects her 
soldiers to do their duty" — and how they did fight. So America 
- expects her men and women to work and they will work, never fear, 
feeling that they have a working interest in all the property of the 
nation; yet their work is honorary, that is. it is on the identical plan 
of the soldier. The soldier does not fight because he gets fifteen 
dollars a month, but because he is a soldier: no more will the father 
of a family work for the hundred dollars dividend — but because he 
is a sustaining mem.ber of society, the larger the family. If it would 
not do to make a soldier's $15 per month contingent on his fighting 
every day, it will not do to make the $100 family income contingent 
UDon working every day: yet if a soldier wilfully leaves the service 
of course his individual mcome stops, and if a citizen wilfully stops 
work, his individual income stops of course, unless he is excused 
by the proper Board of 1-iealth. The real effort of the combine will 
be to maintain the self-respect of each inaividual, as well as to pro- 
vide him a home and material support. Uncombined labor now 
supports directly or indirectly the general and lower branches of 
grvernment, so combined labor can much more easily support it, 
and will — by whatever methods the combine may decide upon and in 
the interest of all the oeople or combine. 

It being needful that all officers of the political government, 
from township supervisor uo to the President of the United States. 
shall be in close sympathy with, and active exponents of the people 
in their movement to acquire their industrial rights, during the tran- 
sit'ent period, therefore, I would recommend what may be called a 
"Home League" in every voting precinct, composed of all men. 
women and children old enough to know the meaning of the word 
home, holding stated meetings, literary and social, urging each 
other as workers to a greater activity and all voters to vote for no 
man for any office who has not pledged himself in writing to be an 
active, faithful and persistent advocate of the principles of the 
Industrial Combine, (a home for all the people and a working 'nter- 
-est in the support of that home) and so mould public opinion, 
and it will soon crvstalized in law or incorporated. Do 



REMEDY. 169 * 

you want a home? — then organize and work for it, for of course : 
we must get it through the regular channels of our civil government, . 
as there is no need of any other way. Industry must have an organ- 
ization distinctly industrial that is unmixed with politics. Remember - 
that it takes both labor and capital to complete industry and when I 
say that labor and capital must be under one management it is equiv- 
aTent to saying industry must be under one management, that is . 
industry cannot be associated with politics without loss toi both, any 
more than the State and the church can be associated together with 
loss to both and if you will stop to think you will soon see that there 
is no more semblance between politics and industry than there 
is between Church and State, a confederation of politics, 
with either capital or labor is certainly irrational and another 
thing you will see, is that all our labor trouble has come upon us 
because we have been putting confidence in politics to help us when; 
it is and forever will be incompetent to help us just as politics 
proved to be long ago unable to help the church. Politics has a dis- 
tinct field oif operation and industry has another and just as distinct. 
Some may get this fact more clearly by an illustration. A man is 
using his lawn mower (it does not make any difference whether the - 
man is a democrat or a republican, a saint or a sinner) the mail man 
hands him a letter from the county clerk, he opens it and finds a 
patent for this beautiful lawn and the cottage that stands on it also 
a certificate of stock for $40,000 in The People's Industrial Combine, 
also a hundred dollar monthly dividend and a notice of an industrial 
meeting at the hall at 8 o'clock that evening for the purpose of 
selecting the most suitable man for industrial foreman. These fore- 
men meet at a later date and select an industrial commissioner the 
commissioners meet in due time and select an industrial State gov- 
ernor. The governors meet and select an industrial national presi- 
dent. My effort always is to be explicit and' distinctly show that a 
time has now come that politics and industry must be separated 
for the best inteirest of both; labor and capital are kindred m nature 
but there is no natural amnity between politics and capital or politics 
and labor, isn't now, never was, and never can be, for the relation is 
an enforced relation. 

"Property" means a man's very own, not a sentiment, not aR-, 
opinion, a fad or a fashion because its a necessity. He must have a 
home as his very own, to keep; he must have an interest in the pro- 
ductive property of the nation as his very own, to keep; and to such 
an amount as will entitle him and his family to a very real income 
to keep; these he must not be permitted to sell — even if he wants to, 
any more than he would a member oif his familV, he that sells away a 
necessity of life, sells the life, and that which takes away the neces- 
sity of life takes the life for all live by these things, who would die 
without them, or become a special burden to or a charge on society; 
hence society is only protecting itself and human life in stipulating 
that these things are not salable — no other interference in buying 
or selling may be needful or desirable. 

It may not seem necessary to clearness, but it may be pleasant 
to recapitulate how the people can come into actual possession of 
all property and that without the least injustice to present owners. 
There is no way but for the people to buy, and the present owners 
to sell; the sale as we believe will be desirable and voluntary on the 
part of both and both actuated by the motive of self-interest. A fair 
price can be settled upon, say three per cent basis as an estimated 
average of productive property. On this basis the seller can lose 
nothing legally, for he has a lien on the property sold. In this 
■case there is added to his security this unique and peculiar fact that 
he now immediately steps over by tlie side of th'e^ buyer, pledged to ■ 



170 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

niake the payment more certain; that is, he is one of the people now 
in their corporate capacity, hence one of the buyers of his own 
property. I think it is, and will be hereafter, honorable on the part 
of the buyer to look at all points in a trade from the seller's stand- 
point (for observe, we are done with and have abandoned competi- 
tion in business and have entered the domain of combination) as 
well and make the security guilt edg'e. On the other hand, the 
buyer can loose nothing, for the property bought has actually paid, 
say three per cent, on the purchase price under competition; how 
vastly much m.ore will it pay under unobstructed co-operating com- 
bination? For, though he did not have a cent in money, he had char- 
acter as a skillful producer and also the genuine confidence of the 
seller, who has put the buyer in possession of the property because 
of his business skill, ability and character, and now, without any ado, 
without stopping a wheel, and to all intents and purposes, the prop- 
erty belongs to the buyer — the corporate people — contingent only 
on paying for it, and. mark you well this unique fact, both the buyer 
and seller is pledged for the payment and the real self-interest of all 
comes in now to co-operate together to make this three per cent 
property more and more productive, so as to pay for it as speed- 
ily as possible. Again let me calm you down, that is if you stand 
agliast at the magnitude oi the ind'ebtedlness, by pointing not only 
to the equal magnitude of the actual property we the buyers now 
have in possession, which in the possession of past owners actually 
paid 3 per cent., but also the actual magnitude of our ability now 
freed from the head-winds of competition. By co-operative eflfort 
to so operate and increase the actual productiveness of farm and fac- 
tory beyond all previous precedent, so the magnitude should rather 
"be an inducement to us to accept the combine. We did not hesitate 
to go to war with Spain because we were too big. No, our magni-- 
tude made us bold and helped us out in every way and intimidated 
Spain. Take another view. The son need not hesitate to buy the 
old hoimestead, knowing that he is soon to get it anyway. Again, 
the buyer and seller both have a mutiral friend in th«» political gov- 
ernment, which occupies some such relations to them as an attorney 
for both. 

The people crystalized in their political relatiofn (political gov- 
ernment), so similarly meeting the same people crystalized in th«ir 
industrial relations (the corporation). These entities are so entirely 
different from each other, yet not at variance; the people in their ca- 
pacit,y of political government reaches down a helping hand to the 
people in their corporate capacity or industry, giving help for help in 
return, yet as two distinct personalities having two distinct and 
dissimilar missions. We each and all possess in the political govern- 
nfent political liberty. This was as complete and emphatic the 
moiment after the Declaration of Independence was signed as it is 
today or ever can be. That is la completed formation of republican 
government. We have shown that political government is incompe- 
tent to take charge of for the purpose of operating any industrial 
matter whatever, but outranks industry in military or court matter, 
Avhich, however, is always pending some decision; which when 
reached, political government or military jurisdiction naturally ends 
and surrenders its charge to industry. Hence its jurisdiction is 
always temd'ing to an endl, so it is not applicable at all to industry, 
which must be permanent in character and continuous, distinctively 
so, and forever continue producing, continuely returning consump- 
tion to supply. So combines get their incorporation papers from this 
political government for good and sufficient reasons, but the govern- 
ment does not follow the combine on into business matters, neither 
does the combine officiate in the office of the Secretary of State or 



REMEDY. 171 

any other governmental department without getting out of its . 
appropriate domain, and vice versa, but mark you that these 
incorporation papers do connect the government with that combine,, 
and itself and in a sense this combine emphatically becomes a citizen. 
Hence it is as practically impossible for the political government: 
to disinherit a well-behaved combine as it is for this same political, 
government to disinherit a well-behaved citizen, and it is just as 
logical and' wise to advocate anti-citizen as it is anti-momopoly. So 
I conclude that the incorporation papers serves only to connect the 
political government and we become industrially free as a combine, 
and in the same sense and to the same extent that we are now 
politically free. But I am especially gratified that the people's indus- 
trial combine comes down to the conceptioni of the children of any 
age and touches us so like a mother, so tangible and so real and 
loving. We all understand what a home, a house of our very own 
and a dividend of one hundred dollars per month for every family of; 
five living in that house (the reason I always speak of the family ot 
five is to harmonize with the beautiful home idea), to feed and clothe- 
us, that is, to spend as we please or fancy, so as to take away any 
semblance of restraint, the perfection of freedom, and so thus maintain 
our individual identity and not get lost in this great busy world, as 
the poor are now so liable to become (and the rich are ever liable to. 
become pooir). Finally, I am content, if I have taught the children 
of any age this lesson of the century, and now as I look down from, 
my desk and along the long aisles and see that the childlren are all 
in and remember at the close of this day that all my pupils have a. 
real home and plenty to go to, I can say with the infinite satisfaction;^ 
of a teacher who has done his or her best, "School is dismissed." 



THE END. 



APPENDIX. 



Voting was not an easy problem for our forefathers to solve. 
During the interim between the close of the revolutionary war 
■and! the adbption of the Federal Constitution (a space of about five 
years) this matter was seriously and sacredly discussed, and the 
line for ,good! and sufficient reasons was drawn at all male citizens 
above the age of twenty-one. Two objections were made to the 
word "all" — one that it was not fair to the rich to give the penniless 
the same power at the ballot-box, and they made a great step toward 
industrial equality when they finally made such liberal concessions 
and adopted political equality, and continued the Declaration of In- 
dtependence as virtually a part of the Constitution, with its equality 
to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. From this distance we 
do not appreciate the struggle of the then, over the property quali- 
fication of a right to vote. The other objection to the word "all" 
was that it was neither safe to trust the ignorant or fair to limit the 
wise to only one vote. We have become accustomed to it now so 
that the President's voting along side of the most unlettered is ac- 
cepted as fair and final by both. Will you, the sons of such mag- 
nanimous fathers, refuse industrial equality now that we have got 
to it( as emphatically as our fathers had to political equality) and 
because of a financial fear of loss to ourselves. Out fathers made 
no mistake in trusting the people with the rights of voting; neither 
will we in trusting the people with a home of their own and an 
equal chance to make a living and to the living after it is made. I 
am aware that equality in industry is about as difficult to adjust and 
fix in the minds of the people now as voting was then, but when 
once adjusted and fixed, as combines are unintentionally fixing it 
now, on the basis of dividends, it will almost immediately recom- 
mend itself, as did the basis of voting recommend itself to our 
fathers. Has it ever occurred to you that neither of these principal 
objections to political equality can be made against industrial 
equality. To the first, do not the poor need to eat and wear as well 
as the rich and do not the poor labor as well and as faithfully as 
the rich. Both are entitled, clearly, alike to food and raiment; 
either would die without it. But not so without political equality, as 
is shown by the continued existence of the women who do not vote. 
Ivct the male citizens above the age of twenty-one do all the eating 
and wearing, and see the result; or take the second objection and 
let the so-called brainy men eat and wear according to their brain 
capacity, and those almost devoid of brains starve accordingly. 
What a ludicrous lot of mortals we would be, or rather immortals; 
and it would be questionable which would die quickest — the fool, 
from starvation, or the wise, like Aesop's frog. An abundant suf- 



APPENDIX. 173 

ficiency of food being- unquestionably assured to the rich cannot 
seem a hardship to the sons of fathers who were magnanimous 
enough to waive property quahfication and mental caliber and take 
their stand among the poor and the ignorant in the interests of 
advancing Christian civilization. Then, when we bring it home, by 
the fireside, and try to think it out with ourselves and Qo4 in its 
numcfTOUs phases, it will be revealed to us that to trust another is the 
one vital qualification of being trusted ourselves, and it is a thousand 
times better to leave as a legacy to our children the basic fact of in- 
dustrial equality, in which it is clearly demonstrated that it is to the 
self-interest of each to have the concern of all, than to leave to them 
the legacy of the millions of a Ro'ckefeller, a Morgan or a Carnegie, 
in the midst of a competitive mob, who look upon it as a privilege 
— aye, a duty — to strip these lives and leave them penniless to starve. 
Don't say there is no d'anger. Yo'u know there is, and will be for- 
ever until competitive chaos or industrial mob law gives place to 
the law and order of a fraternal combine, in the pure self-interest of 
all, and self-interest in industry andl self-govornment politically go 
hand in hand down the ages. 

Christian perfection is thought to be necessary for the attain- 
ment of industrial equality. This view does not seem to be in har- 
mony with God's methods of sending rain or other blessings on the 
evil as well as on the good, does it? Christ was teaching the multi- 
tude (Matthew v: i), all the people (Matthew vii:28) — if any of 
them were perfect, surely not all — all of them. In this discourse we 
here notice the matchless preamble to an industrial law. This pre- 
amble reads as follows: "What man is there of you whom, if his son 
ask bread, will he give him a stone, or if he ask a fish will he give 
him a serpent, if ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts 
unto your children, how much moire shall your Father which is in 
heaven give good things to them that ask Him (Matthew vii:9-ii); 
following this preamble comes the law now actuating the corpora- 
tion, the combine idea. The industrial co-operation of the indi- 
vidual. The actual self-interest of each, whether good or bad, 
perfect or imperfect, clearly including all — hear it — "Therefore all 
things whatsoeveir ye would that men should do to you do ye even 
so to them for this is the law and the prophets." This the multum 
in parvo, competent to, yea, is, solving the whole industrial problem 
right before our eyes, as seen in the little combines and trusts, but 
sadly enou:gh are still competing against each other and us, now rid 
them of this competition and we have the industrial combine. In 
fact that Christian civilization has been approaching slowly, pre- 
sistently ever since it first echoed firom this mountain in Galilee 
until its echo has reached America and founded here a republic and 
a congenial, industrial, cultured people as I believe in a receptive 
mood, ready to yield to and accept its full fruition. After we think 
of it, salvation from sin, as some of us like to believe in, does not 
relieve us from attending to business, dioes it? Then it cannot be 
or become a necessary qualification to the complete possession of a 
home and agtreable employment in the support of that home. 
Surely the all Father does not differentiate between the so-called 
good and the so-called bad in industrial matter. He giving seed time 
and harvest to all alike, because we each have need of all these 
things, and it is not like our Heavenly Father to make material 
necessity contingent upon a spiritual attainment, hence it is as much 
the privilege to accept, that we do not say that it is as much the 
duty of the infidel to step out and work for industrial equality, 
land the "as ye would" law'; it is a business perfection, and 
has in it the acme of industrial happiness, and as such it does not 
conflict with or in any way lower our appreciation of spiritual Chris- 



174 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

tian perfection. Our believing it cannot harm you, or deny to 
either me or you the high privilege and full benefit, this complete 
law of combined industrial life, or prevent us from harmoniously 
co-operating together to obtain it or the impartial enjoyment of the 
combine when obtained. 

Abolitionists educated the people to see that slavery was incon- 
sistent with American freedom, but they did not free the slaves. 
Prohibitionists are educating the people to see that whisky is evil, 
and that continually, but prohibitionists must be discreet enough to- 
enlist a force that is fully competent to eradicate that evil. The civil 
war was not begun to liberate the slave, but the liberation of the 
slave became a military necessity, and was so recognized by Douglas 
Democrats and^ Lincoln Republicans who fought side by side to 
save this republic. So now Prohibitionists must not exclude tem- 
perance people, and let me ask who is not temperance if it was 
simply a question between temperance and intemperance every- 
body would be on the side of temperance, but it is a question of 
makin.e a living to most of us, and to run a whisky dealer out of 
business is unfair and unjust; we must provide him a way to make a 
living and the People's Industrial Combine comes to the rescue and 
does that very thing. 

Civilization is engaged! in producing fruit to eat. clothes to wear, 
etc. These productions belong to those producing them. It is clear 
that if these producers stop producing, go on a strike as we say, they 
must necessarily cripple not only the employer (if we must have one) 
and diminish his ability to piay, but the woirst of it all it decreases 
the supply, and causes the innocent to suffer with the guilty. Will 
we forever continue this insane system of loss to the whole family, 
when a way to help it is ofifered? Adequate, able, aye, fully compe- 
tent to adjust right relations in this disturbed condition of society. 
The people do not need a capitalist, an employer, any more than they 
need a king. They only need their own managers, just as any cor- 
poration. The stockholders directing their own financial business 
affairs for their own self-interest andl in their own way. 

Sympathy, that priceless crown of rare jewels, is not fading, 
it is appreciated as ever by the inner hearts of the American people, 
but it has been forced asid'e into a secondary place by the popular 
greed for wealth. Avarice, like a courtesan, has for the time being 
stolen the attention of the husband and the beautiful virtuous god- 
dess of liberty has been compelled' to seek the privacy of her room, 
and Uucle Sam has a time of flirting with a dancing girl, and' like 
Herod of old, was led into a trap and spurious honor compelled him 
tottake the life of his friendl, John the Baptist. So the greed for 
wealth, the mad rush for dollars by the already rich and' more espe- 
cially the aspiring poor, who so badly want to be rich, crushing 
virtue into the dust, trampling sympathy to earth at sight of that 
blear-eyed monster wealth; fighting for it, competing for it, little 
caring whether the injured innocence of the masses of the common 
people have a stick or a crumb left. Would to God that I could 
paint an appeal to these mad rufiians to cause them to remember that 
they have a virtuous and neglected wife at home, the love of 
former days, longing for a return of the love and sympathy of those 
old days. 

I am glad for one view of the great commission instituted by 
President Roosevelt in the case of the strike in the Pennsylvania 
coal field's, though it miserably failed! to settle anything, rather 
unsettled everything, by developing the appalling fact that trusts 
could do, have done, and will continue to do, just as they please, 
regardless of Presidents. Congresses, courts or commissions. This 
fact so vividly brought out so that all begin to see, serves but to 



APPENDIX. 175 

create sympathy for these helpless miners, and as we sit and think 
we begin to see that their helplessness is also ours as soon as any 
occasion arises to victimize us. Then is it not apparent that as their 
slavery is ours, that their cause is also ours, and shall we not unite 
in one common cause for freedom and adopt a method, not of red- 
top boots and! tin swords as boys against a flock of geese, but a 
method tantamount to the emergency, magnitude and dignity of men 
and the occasion,. If these trusts have developed anything, if they 
have shown us anything, it is that they can be and are kind to their 
stockholders. I beg of you, my people, to look at this -fact. Its our 
only ray of hope, and it does hold in its effulgence the solution of 
this vital industrial problem. The time of tin swords or fighting in 
any violent way is irrelevant and not to be longer thought of. This 
problem must be settled' by the sterner arbitraments O'f peace. 
Diplomacy will permanently settle, but war never did settle beyond 
a time when the vanquished foe could recuperate. My fellow-country- 
men, war fight competition is all out-classed by the People's Indus- 
trial combine. 

Probably the most important point to make in the study of the 
Industrial Combine is a clear-cut, well-defined' distinction in our own 
minds between selfishness and self-interest in industrial matters. If 
we thoughtlessly take it for granted that they are the same, we fall 
into error and will fail to see anything but selfishness in its very 
worst form and inevitably class ourselves among the brutes, yet 
unhum,anized; whereas self-interest is as beautiful, desirable 
and heavenly as selfishness is ugly, despicable and — well, words fail 
me, as I am not a sailor, so must content myself by saying that sel- 
fishness is the very essense of diepravity. It is the animal, the 
brute, before he or she developed into a man or woman. The farther 
we get away from selfishness the deeper we get into our own 
individual self-interest, hence the nearer we come to fulfilling the 
design of our Maker. Self-interest is the soul of Christian civiliza- 
tion. L-isten, self-interest is also the soul of the individual combine; 
continue to listen, a righteous self-interest is the soul of corporation, 
it is the self-yielding and admitting another and another and still 
another, until five are included in and admitted to the benefits and 
the Secretary of State simply christens the child and calls it corpora- 
tion. Better have called it industrial self-interest after its father, 
for it was begotten down there by the development, the yielding of 
th"e unselfish heart. The world has been waiting for this develop- 
ment, this object lesson, this gifted child, the trusty corporation, 
which has taught this longed-for lesson to trust that you may be 
trusted. The wiser ones have learned it and are adbptimg it. Why 
stand we here idle and agap. I dwell longer on this point than on 
any other, because it is the most difficult to learn, so accustomed 
have we been to the associations with the stinginess of selfishness, 
that we think it necessary to our industrial existence, and when I 
say that it is not, you dismiss the subject by carelessly saying, the 
Doctor is in earnest, no dioubt, but he is mistaken. But, sir or 
madlam, what are you going to do with the teaching of the wise men 
everywhere, who do see and have become convinced, and have 
gone on over into some one or more of these combines, and no 
inatter if you db not believe me you must believe them, both in 
their precept and example — aye, you do believe' them, you do be- 
lieve me; and its not worth your while to lie about it another time. 
Never say again that men are too selfish to combine in their own 
self-in/terest; it is a contradiction of terms and also shows that you 
yourself are not very far removed from the brute, hence not yet a 
man but still an animal. Persuasively, let me say, that self-interest 
includes all the good, selfishness all the bad. We cannot get away 



176 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

from ourselves, our personality, no more can we from our self-in- 
terest. It will bring to us all the desires of industrial happiness that 
selfishness has beem forever promising to us, yet has never supplied. 
What is a thing worth to us in the realm of humanity unless we caa 
share it with another? The combine recommends itself as the only 
way to properly make these shares just and equitable to others that 
others can also be just to us, and the infidel needs this friendly jus- 
tice the same as the devoted Christian; both are gentlemen and 
shouldl treat each other as such; both are equally obligated to do 
their part; and both are entitled to equal consideration and industrial 
reward. The fact that we may part company when we are done 
with industry need not spoil our enjoyment of indlistrial equality in. 
this life. 

We come to you with a definite proposition, not a lot of plati- 
tudes, or to vote this or that party ticket, but to incorporate. Can a 
strike or a lockout ever occur among stockholders? I may not be 
able to convince you, but I can hold up the combine and it can and 
will convince the doubtful. Combines are like a big brother tossing 
a baby sister around just to show that they can and are not afraid. 
Until competition is driven out of the field, the Combines, like indi- 
viduals, will have to fight, to compete, and dio not blame them for 
doing the very best they can for their stockholders; you know they 
would' bie to blame if they did not do their best; they would not be 
entitled to our respect or cause us to have faith in their ability to 
do anythinig and everything in industry that ought to be done. 

I believe it was Mr. Lincoln who said, "The strongest bond of 
human sympathy out of the family relation should be one uniting 
all working people." The Industrial Combine includes all men do- 
ing their dtuty in their own individual niche as working people, and 
the relation' referred to by Lincoln, next to the family, is the larger 
family, the co-operative family. Wages are inimical to family life. 
Dividends are always understood in the smaller and must be con- 
tinued in the larger family, society as a whole. 

We cannot blame any one, rich or poor, for despising drudgery, 
but do we not labor intensely, hunting, dancing, playing, and call 
it pleasure? Surely, then, it is not the labor we hate, but the wage 
idea, the menial idea, the drudgery idea; these ideas will stick and 
humiliate as long as one man owns a wage slave. Combines de- 
clare dividends, and wages exit, and drudgery ceases to exist. 
Menial labor is not thought of. Each will feel honor bound to do 
their fair share of the world's work. Duty will be accepted as a 
privilege. The Combines are working out our ideals for us. Let 
us do as they so plainly show us how; we can cross the Jordan in a 
day, if we will. 

The commission to settle the great coal miners' strike in Pennsyl- 
vania closed its investigations. It was instituted and carried! for- 
ward with candor and honesty, and the Nation stands appalled with 
its developments. It is no comfort tO' the thoughtful rich to dis- 
cover the nakedness, the innocent helplessness of labor, made all 
the more pitiable by its sadi efToirt to be brave and refuse to ac- 
knowledge its defeat, and braces up to still follow a forlorn hope. 
It is true there dioes not seem to be anything else to do. They do 
not want to surrender to capital, and, strange to say, capital c.jts 
net want them to surrender, for capital is doing well enough, and 
practically says, "Let the fight continue." It is significant that Mr. 
Darrow comes so very near the Combine Idea, and yet not see it. 
Why could not his heart have carried him just a little farther? He 
pathetically said: "It is not a demand to shirk work, as is often 
claimed to be the case. It is a demand' for the rest of the individ- 
ual; to have. a better life, a fuller life, a completer life; and this, like 



APPENDIX. nr 

everything else, depends upon your point of view. There is only- 
one standpoint from which you have a right to approach this- 
question, and that is what will make the best man, the best Amer- 
ican, to build up a nation where there will be no more strikes and: 
no more violence. Other gentlemen may measure it in dollars ana 
cents; I shall not." 

Truth, every word of it; yet what hollow mockery is the whole 
proceeding of the commission if it must stop there. These same 
miners and wage receivers everywhere carry the same sad hearts- 
with them to their work that they dSd a year ago, knowing that 
perhaps within another year the same strike will be necessary. A- 
woiundedl soldier loved) his emperor and said to his attending sur- 
geon, "Probe a little deeper, doctor, and you will find the emperor."" 
Why did not the arbitrators probe just a little deeper and find ai 
remedy, find industrial independence for all the people, find the co- 
operation and use it, find the Combine Idlea and so save the life of 
the patient people. Anything else is charlatanism. Call it 
heroic treatment, if you will, but our duty is imperative. We must 
go for the bullet, no matter how it igot there. An arbitration poul- 
tice, no matter if made of wages that take all profits without leaving: 
capitalists a cent, spread over this bullet wound, is quackery. That 
foreign body, that bullet, must be removed or our patient, our Repub- 
lic, dies. We must go ahead and not forever keep going back to 
wages, high or low, back to strikes and lockouts ad infinitum; back 
to beggary, back to fighting for a chance to work, back to compe- 
tition, or as the proverb puts it — return as a dog to his vomit andl as a 
sow to her wallowing in the mire. Why not combine and be men, 
manly men — "men whom duty to their country know." What sense 
is there for Darrow or any other man to talk about building up 
a nation where there will be no more strikes and no more violence 
among fiesh and blood men amd on this side of heaven, and at the 
same time throw up breastworks and dig entrenchments and enlist the 
chiefs and braves from bootblacks to engineers to fight, to strike, 
and what then? to humiliate the employer and compel him to sur- 
render, and what then? chain capital to^ the chariot wheels of con- 
quering labor, and what then? demand wages equal to all the profits 
that's in the business, and what then? let capitalists go on a strike, 
tit for tat, and what then? After capital has had a turn at them let 
labor take it up to the end of time, and one might well wish that it 
would not be long, hnit why continue this foolishness another hour, 
when the combine is just at hand, and we need only tO' put out our 
hand and take it; better to say it is already ours and we have but 
to enter into possession without any humiliation to capitalists or 
a moment's further humiliation to laborers, and thus, and only thus, 
can the strike that Mr. Darrow refers to be prevented. 

I lam not criticising Mr. Darrow. I only wish that he and Mr. 
Roosevelt might go a little further and find a remedy as well as tcr 
locate the disease. 

Wage slaves are the cheapest lot of slaves that were ever sold 
from an auction block. The master buyer or employer doesn't pay 
a cent for him, and' if he quits the owner don't lose a cent. An 
African slave frequently sold for a thousand dollars, and if he quit 
. d went to Canada the buyer lost a big round thousand dollars. 
Ah, but you say the African slave had to work, and we don't; your 
employer knows better and so do you. Hunger, cold and wretched- 
ness of either you or your loved ones will bring you to your knees in 
/ime, mark you. The principle of one man working for another 
for wages is the cause of strike^, lockouts and all our labor trouble, 
and is basely wrong, unnecessary and uncalled for in American 



178 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

civilization with political equality and liberty on the one hand and an 
open way to avoid wage slavery shown by the object lesson of com- 
bines with dividends om the other. 

Contrast our thraldom to capital to the thraldom of our 
fathers in Boston Harbor, when throwing a bit of English tea over- 
board on account of a few cents tariff to the existing usurpation of 
a principle, competition now fighting us for more and' more. It has 
not only secured the few cents tariff that caused our fathers to rebel, 
but they take an eighth, a fourth, a half, aye, it takes it all and simply 
feeds us so as to be physically able to work for it another* day. and 
fearing lest we remember that we are blooded! stock of Revolution- 
ary strain, it combines to. make our thraldom more and more positive. 
If Renzie, in his memorable address to the Romans, said, "Rouse, 
ye Romans, rouse, ye slaves have ye brave sons? Look in the next 
fierce brawl to see them torn and' if ye dare call for justice, be an- 
swered by the lash," and' had cause to say it. How much more cause 
have we to demand our inherent rights in politically free America. 
If we arouse in time we can get free. 

I grant you that combines did not and do not aim at The 
People's Industrial Combine. Neither did the colonists aim at this 
great republic. How frequently men aim at one thing and! hit an- 
other. These combines have as definitely shown the people how to 
combine as though it had been their intention to do so and to lead 
the people up to it. Shall we reject it because it was not d'esign&d 
by them to help us? The few colonists referred to combining against 
English oppression much as a few sensible men combined against 
oppressive competition laid the foundation for self-government, so 
these few sensible men have laid the foundation for industrial co- 
operation and real self-interest. 

If starving is an inability to get food it surely is not rational 
for a people who have the control, the legal right to prevent it, 
to any longer indorse as a public policy an industrial condition of 
things that gives toi one man the necessity of the life of another, 
for he who controls the necessity of life controls the life, or he who 
withholds or takes the necessity of life away takes the life. 

The thoughts that filled the mind of the soldier were not the strife 
in which he is engaged or hatred of the foe, but it was oif home, 
sweet home. The better the home the better the soldier is a fact. 
I read an incident of the Crimean war; the soldiers expected to 
storm a fort next day, yet they sang. What did they sing? "Annie 
Laurie," of home and the loved ones there. "Home-made heroes" 
they were. Ah, the world does not sing enough; let us have a home 
to sing for, and then sing. "Life is too short" for resentment or 
selfishness we know better than we do. Shall we longer deny a 
home to the homeless simply because it is irregular or because he 
or she does not belong to our set or say he is only a soldier or she 
is used to doing without the comforts of life. 

While we are thinking of our homes in the army and navy I 
remember they are not all there; the nation is full of them. The 
men and women who are struggling against adverse coinditions of 
both poverty and riches, carrying heavy loads, yet facing the world 
with a smile. Ah, shall we forever confront these heroes and 
heroines with a frown? 

"Experience is a dear schoolmaster, but fools will learn in no 
other." Yet we must have a little sense if we learn by experience. 
Political parties and politics in general terms have been promising 
for a score of years to adjust the right relations between labor and 
capital, with fatter capitalists and lanker laborers, ad infinitum. 
If experience can teach us fools at all, has it not taught us that poli- 
tics can't manage indiustrial affairs, and is it not just as plain that 



APPDNDIX. 179 

combines can, and that politics are not adapted to or designed to 
manage indiustry. but combines are, and because if for no other rea- 
son politics don't do it and combines do, Congresses and Legisla- 
tures and you and I are all in the same boat, all depending on in- 
dustrial nianagement, and as we have not had sense enough to man- 
aige our own industries, a few capitalists have had sense enough tc 
combine and do it for us fools, "where are we at?" 

A bill has been introduced to create of the Indian Territory » 
State and call it JefTerson. That has the true ring to it. It kindles 
patriotism; it reminds the people that it was Jefferson who wrote 
that immortal document, the Declaration of Independence, and set 
in active operation that form of government that trusts the people- 
with political power, that is to manage their own political affairs. 
Can it be now considered in the light of a venture to trust the people- 
with their own industrial affairs?? Jefferson's ideas when applied to- 
industry as he applied it to politics is the combine idea. It has made 
the nation politically and will make the nation industrially, and is- 
ours for the claiming. 

Before American independence it was doubted whether a people- 
could govern themselves politically. They said: "Those of my na- 
tionality might be trusted, those of my guild) may be competent, those 
of mv church may be good enough, those of my profession may be 
intelligent enough. Those that are in settled homes of their own' 
may be rich enough, but to trust foreigners and of all nationalities, 
the uncultuired, the irreligious, the uneducated, the homeless poor — it 
can't be done" Aye, but it was done, and it is well that it 
was done. So now these same people can be trusted with their own 
industries. 

Let me observe that competition in business will soon be a 
thing of the past. The combine age is on, and it is irrational to sup- 
pose that industries coimbining will still and forever compete. Com- 
petitative selfishness is fading out as the darkness before the coming 
day of the self-interest of the combine. Clearly self-interest is not 
a broader selfishness, but rather the exact antithesis. We have been 
looking with longing eyes at the men above us; now the combine 
offers a helping hand to those below us. 

The money interest that all the people have in the whisky busi- 
ness takes the pray out of their prayers, and we may just as well 
quit praying against it until we put away the strange god. Money, 
as an obiect of worship. But that is just what the People's Indus- 
trial Combine proposes to do, toi put both money and whisky where 
they belong if one or both cause physical or moral ruin it is no use 
to pray unless we step out and do, for the Christ of Christian civ- 
ilization has told us exactly what to do, and describes exactly the 
peculiar business sensation that comes to an infidel as well as a 
Christian in these remarkable words, Whatsoever ye would that men 
should do to you, do you even so to them. It is no use to pray 
and then go and "divy up" with whisky or wealth. 

Dickens said a long time ago that "Gin drinking is a great vice 
in England, but wretchedness and diet are a greater, and until you 
improve the homes of the poor, ginshops will increase in number 
.and splendor." We have tried all other remedies in vain. The pro- 
tected home is the only way. 

The want of confidence between employed and employer will 
forever cultivate a spirit of distance exasperating to both. What 
does a Union mean if not? I will not trust the employer and the 
employer feels it and resents it of course. I d)o not take sides with 
him, foir he is to blame, but I do ask both to look at this enforced 
condition as entirely useless to both and irrational when exposed to 
the light (if the combine idea. When an employer is as useless as a 



180 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

king would be, to compel a free American citizen to be loyal to his 
republic or to hire three men to compel the fourth to work. 

Christ can raise the dead. He did raise Lazarus from the dead, 
but He told men to loosen the grave clothes; men could do that, 
and Christ still expects men to do all that they can or are author- 
ized' to do, hence He said, "Whatsoever ye would that men should 
doi to you, do ye even so to them." He will do anything for us 
that wc cannot do for ourselves. So it goes without saying that He 
will not do for us anything that we can do for ourselves. This is as 
true of the nation as it is of the individual. This, as a principle, 
holds good in all national affairs. Political government will' do for 
the individual only what the individual cannot do for himself. When 
political government devised the corporation, government tacitly 
said to the individual, unite, incorporate, and so manage your own 
industries in your own way and for your own self-interest, 
so what business has government now to usurp the right it has 
g-iven already to the individual. 

2. The sense of fairness implanted in the mind and heart of 
the American people will never permit them to adopt government 
ownership — then again it is not in the genius of a republic like ours, 
which so particularly recognizes the individual in citizenship, must 
intuitively recognize the individual in ownership. It's like the par- 
ents of a large family planning for children. What can we do for 
the eldest, and the next, and so on to the youngest. No planning is 
complete until the whole family is considered, and without partiality. 
So with our larger family, the nation, we cannot be partial. 

Combinations are usually feared because they threaten to adi- 
vance prices to an exorbitant height, but a bill has recently been in- 
troduced to prevent combines from bringing down prices lest small 
competitors be run out of existence. Can't the people sec by this 
groping in the dark that politics can't manipulate industry, try 
as it may, and on the other hand can't the people see by the success 
of combines everywhere that industry can manipulate its own affairs 
and in its own way and for the real self-interest of all of its stock- 
holders? 

I hope to attract the attention of the legal profession especially 
by a quotation from the Iron Age in its January issue from an ad- 
dress of a Judge of the United States Circuit Court: 

"To the extent that such subsequent issues represent increased 
value, due to management and operation, I would encourage, by 
every feasible method, its division in fair proportions between those 
who have furnished the capital and those who have done the work. 
I would embody the basis of such division in the contract of incor- 
poration, so that it would operate as a contract right, and 
not as a mere bonus. Experience has shown that there is no way 
toi so satisfactorily mitigate the struggle between capital and labor 
and none so just as a fair division of the harvest after both the 
reapers — capital and labor — have each had their reasonable hire. 

"A program such as this is not, in my judgm.ent, either radical 
or impracticable. It will be opposed, however, by those who look 
upon corporations of any kind as a menace to public liberty and by 
those who look upon restraint of corporations of any kind as an 
invasion of industrial liberty. It will be opposed by the men who 
are temperamentally apprehensive, by the men who believe the 
present good times to be due to present conditions and deplore in- 
terference, and by the men who still wait their opportunity to get 
rich out of present methods of trust organization. It will be op- 
posed by those who have given to the subject no study, and by those 
who are incapable of giving it a candid study, and by those 
who thrive in practicing frauds on public opinion. It will fail until 



APPENDIX. 181 

public opinion is reached and educated But publ'ic opinion will, 
in the endl, be reached and educated. It will be made to see that a 
country is not made great by becoming rich; that a government is 
not secure whose sole policy is to realize large dividends to capital 
and a large wage to laborers and toi keep the peace between them; 
that there will be found firmer depths than these for the foundations 
of permanent security. We will then begin, in reality, to rebuild the 
ind^ustrial edifice — a new edifice made necessary by the change of 
time — but on the old foundations. We will anchor it, where our 
fathers anchored theirs, in a general proprietorship, so widely spread 
among the people and thus securely buttressed against hate and envy 
that time and change will thereafter dash in vain against the security 
of the State." 

The learned Judge is right. Read again and again until his idea 
gets clear to your own mind and sinks down into your heart. He is 
a friend! of labor, and sets the whole industrial problem up where we 
can look at, and like a mirror we can also see ourselves, our difficul- 
ties and how to cure them. You may not care to listen to me, but 
he commands your respect. Read again andi see how his prophecy 
is completely fulfilled by the People's Industrial Combine. 

A i-econciliation Oif rich and poor, of labor and capital, as im- 
portant as it clearly is, is not as important as continued conciliation, 
a bringing together, a consulting of industrial interest, the adop- 
tion of the combine idea as a conciliatory measure will lift up the 
people, will place them on a high industrial plane where they can 
see that the industrial interest of one is the industrial interest of all, 

-and each can consistently move forward to the full extent of their 
iistelJectual capacity financially, physicalKy, morally, socially and 
mentally into the broadi light of Christian civilization, and into 
"As ye would that men should) db unto you, do ye," as an industrial 
business motto. 

There is only one way to get rid of competition, and that is to 
buy it out, and the industrial combine enables the people to do that 
very thing. Government ownership by coercive measures is very 
different from co-operate ownership by the voluntary consent of the 
owner. Convince a man against his will and he holds the same 

■opinion still. We must win the good' opinion of the public, else we 
will forever be liable to recurrences of mutiny and revolt. Of course 
the State has always the right to arrest and punish for the breaking 
of a law, but we are not suffering so much from broken law, mind 
you, as we are from the privileges of law. It is perfectly apparent 
that nearly all the usurpations of capital are clearly legal. A cap- 
italist wouldl be very foolish to lay himself liable to arrest and im- 
prisonment. You must not deceive yourself longer by thinking that 
capitalists are a lot of law-breakers. We must see that the hardships 
from which we suffer are legal, and the proper procedure is tc 
make the combine universal in its application, then there will be no 
one to complain. 

It is visionary to expect any permanent results from any temporary 
measures, from any modified form of competition. We know that 
combination absolute is the only remedy. Then why longer trifle 
with measures that can only aggravate by their continued procrasti- 
nation. If these private combinations would wait I would despair 
of getting the masses of the people to act in their own interests, but 
we plainly see that combination is not going to wait and give flesh 
and Wood men time to develop into angels. We must act as men if 
at all. It is not a matter that can be postponed for one, five or 
twenty yeatrs or until people get better. Combines are at your very 
door, and you must act today. What can I, what will you, what 

"dare we dt) with them? 



182 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

Let me introduce an up-to-date clipping from a newspaper 
edited by one of the brainest men in America, to show that no 
definite plan to settle the labor question is in sight. "The Republi- 
can party does not know any cure for the trust evils. Its best think- 
ers and statesmen are feeling their way toward' the right course to 
pursue, slowly and carefully, but sincerely; and they have got as far 
as to propose the fullest publicity in regard to the doings of all 
great corporations possessing power enough to be sources of danger 
if that power were sought to be used for the public injury rather than 
the public good. That is about as far as the party is ready to go. 
The legislatioin already had has tendJed to aggravate the evil rather 
than to help it, has tended to make corporations greater and more 
centralized rather than merely associated, and the lesson has taught 
prudence and the wisdom of making haste slowly. But if there be 
a sound reason why Democrats should oppose trusts and' Republi- 
cans should not, what is that reason? If there be nO' reason then 
why not accept Republican promises to antagonize the evil that 
trusts do as frankly as Democratic protestations of a like nature are 
accepted? We are all in the same boat and where we are bound for 
nobody knows." A dismal but tremendously true statement of 
facts. Listen, the People's Industrial Combine holds the solution 
of this exclusively industrial problem. 

You can begin now and continue to advocate industrial com- 
bination and not change your party or politics. It is only the trans- 
fer of what is proving to be a grievous burden to honest politics, 
onto the broad, willmg and competent shoulders of industry, which 
is able and can carry this, its own rightful load, as gladly and as 
naturally as the lover carries the love of the sweetheart, because 
each has an affinity for, aye, belongs to the other, and alike as in- 
separable as capital and labor. What a pitiable spectacle do we be- 
hold as the difTerent State Legislatures and the Congress of the 
United States, politicians trying to farm, to manufacture, to mine, 
to run railroads, steamships, etc., telling industry, telling the men 
that do know just exactly how this that and' the other must be done. 
Politics dictating to industry! The novice dictating to the expert! 
Yet there seems to be no other way. If politics does not presume to 
direct then all are lost in the fog. All did I say? No, not all. A 
few men still know the points of compass. These combines have 
blazed the way for civilization, and we do well to stay by the trail. 
Neither need you join any church or change your church relation. 
The combine is simply unloading onto industry the incubus of 
finance, and forever leave the existing inconsistencies of financial 
busines of its votaries outside the church doors, so that altar ser- 
vice becomes a practical obedience toi the command. There- 
fore, if thou bring thy gifts to the altar and there rememberest 
that thy brother hath aught against thee, leave there thy gift 
before the altar and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother 
and then come and offer thy gift. If I were tO' look about me for a 
suitable object to compare the illimitable broadness of your, our 
of politics my mind and heart would take as that comparison the 
possibilities in industrial liberty when freed from the thralldom 
Combine Idea. I would gallantly open its gate and bid you enter 
and see for yourself. 

Profit sharing among equals is all right if it were possible, and it 
is, but what consummate folly to think of profit sharing between a 
big man and a little one, between an owner and his hired man, be- 
tween an employer and his employe, between a master armed with 
all rights and privileges and' a d'efenseless slave is but deception 
^vorst deceived. Look at a big. fat trust briging a poor, lank, lean 
laborer with two bits worth of stock, under a pretense at profit 



APPENDIX. 183 

sharing and 2 per cent, dividends. Monstrous! Labor being com- 
pelled to form into unions and strike is bad enough, but what de- 
testable deception to bind labor hand and foot with a shadow of an 
mterest m a big corporation so that he can't even strike on account 
of his visionary interest in the concern. He can't even complain 
His little insignificant stock acts as "hush money." He can't talk. 
His mouth is closed by his supposed financial venture. Talk about 
"'buying birds in the bush," that would be wisdom compared with 
taking stock in a combine where stockholders are not equals. We are 
equal politically and religiously, and we must be, and soon will be, 
equal I hope industrially, anything less is "a delusion and a snare."' 
^he scheme of the big men is to get enough of us little fellows 
tied up with stock until we can't strike, and then say to the other 
little fellows, take my price for your work or quit unless you want 
to becorne a stockholder in my combine. My stockholders must 
have an increase of diividends, and so I propose to decrease wages 
to get it for them. This is dividends taking the place of wages with 
a ^vengeance. This is profit sharing with a big man, one little man 
•with both dividends and wages amounting only to what wages 
alone formerly amounted to, and only a bare subsistence, is used to 
reduce the wages of the others to starvation rates. Our fathers did 
not need a big man for King. Neither do we need a big man for a 
capitalist. Our fathers became Kings of equal rank. We must be- 
come capitalists of equal rank, andl then, and not till then, can profit 
■sharing become possible or desirable. 

If you love unions or have any confidence in them. These big 
men by this species of deception will inevitably destroy unions and 
develop an association Tike that between the lion and the devoured 
"kid. We stand equal politically under the stars and stripes, but in- 
dustrially we are subjects of a monarch. Wages mean monarchy, 
•dividends implies a republic, is adapted to, fits into, and has the 
spirit of a republic, hence all the crokedness in our industrial mat- 
ters have grown, and arc growing out of the fact that America is 
a republic politically, but is still a monarchy indlustrially, and the 
way to obtain our industrial independence is first to consider capital 
as_ the product of labor, hence capital belongs to labor. 2nd That 
labor and capital together constitute industry. 3rdl Industry must 
T>e and become under one only management. Noi mystery about 
that, is there? But what has become of strikes and lockouts? Who 
could strike if they wanted to? Who would want to strike when all 
are alike interested? 4th This one management, the people in their 
co-operate capacity, authorized to buy up all productive property 
from present owners and pay them for it (see Remedy) with the 
genuine intention of being fair to the poor without being unfair to 
the rich. When all parties in interest get together face to face or 
on the plane of equality there is no difficulty too great to be 
amicably settled (how easily have strikes been settled in that way) 
-w'hen each have discovered that the others were men of like passions 
and ever-returning wants, not laborers or capitalists, not employers 
or employes, not masters or slaves, but men equally obligated to 
God, equally obligated! to. the flag, equally obligated to each 
•other. 

I recently saw an editorial in a popular newspaper on homes 
in the country for the poor, but the editor failed to give any way 
for the poor to get them. The glowing description of the desirability 
of a cottage by the brook is little less than exasperating to the 
homeless mother of restful children and wife of an overworked 
discouraged husband, none of which can see any other way to get 
this editorial home except to disinherit some other mother, turn out 
of doors some other family of children, or steal another man's job. 



184 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

just as though there were not homes enough to go around or jobs- 
enough for every man. A leading clergyman said to a Boston audi- 
ence that the herding of people together in apartment houses is as 
wicked as hell, and yet, reverent sir, how do you propose to help it? 
Surely not by every man bowing at your altar or going to your 
church any more than the editor could promise a home and a job to 
every one that would join his politcal party. Yet, I would not 
even moderate the vehemence of either clegyman or ed/itor. They 
may use all the verbiage of a sailor andl not do the subject justice, 
but what miserable, miserable, miserable comforters, to learnedly sit 
back and diagnose the disease, tell the sufifering patient what is the 
matter and discourse on how nice it wouJd be to be well and never 
offer a remedy, and' take coat and hat and the patient gasps, "What 
can be done?" "Oh, well, if you have enough vitality you will pull 
through, but if not — well, good day." 

We are loth to admit the fact that private combines 
have bled' and are bleeding the industrial citizen, and have 
proved able and will forever be able to bleed the gov- 
ernment. Hear what Representative Jones of Washington 
said in the House February 19, 1903: "The ship-building trust is in 
a position to take the Secretary of the Navy by the throat and say 
to him that he must accept its bid or get no ships." I would not 
inflame the people, but I would do a kinder and a thousand times- 
wiser thing by showing them that if a few men can get such power 
out of the corporation, such beautiful results for the stockholder ot 
this or any trust, this same beautiful result is ours for the asking. 

No battle has ever been fought between Labor and Capital that 
has brought out the skillful maneuvering of both, as the Pennsyl- 
vania strike, convincing all thoughtful minds that fighting is not the 
way, and absolutely worse than useless. Capital lost nothing by the- 
famine in coal; Labor gained nothing, and never can by that kind 
of tactics. Why follow a forlorn hope another inch? Why crawl at 
the feet of a god that Labor has made, and' say, "Baal, hear us; Baal, 
hear us. "Labor has produced all capital, and all capita! must, from 
now on, belong to its maker. We need every bit of it in our busi- 
ness and so we will just keep it, incorporate, organize our own 
trust and distribute all our productions among ourselves — no strikes 
or lockouts; simply keep what we make." We must end industrial 
strife; not mend it or maneuver andl attack from another point, and 
so try to patch up defeat by a grist of anti-trust laws. Trusts are 
growing faster than unions, so it is worse than idle to longer fight, 
identical and same reason, can forever continue to defeat labor in a^ 
If capital, through the combines, can and are now, they, for the 
fight, so why fight at all. When a man already has a thing, why 
fight for it. We already have our mind and muscle, and absolutely 
own all that it will produce. Let us act with business common 
sense, and keep it. There can be no reason for the producer to 
produced $4 and give $3 of them away to a privileged bystander, the 
so called capitalist. It is no real kindness to him, and he gives you 
no credit for it; in fact, you don't dieserve any credit for doing such 
a foolish thing. You do not do it as a kindness; there is emphatically 
no reason for it; it is only a silly fashion. 

There is no way after all to so surely avoid the evil, the wrong, 
as to be busy with the right. There are so many little byways, little 
parties, little schemes, all inadequate to cure; in fact, they are not 
intended to cure, but rather to wound, to hurt, to inflame. Why- 
should reformers expect to cure by opening up old sores and cut- 
ting and slashing everybody that does not worship their idol or 
party. We all know there is a right way; it may not be my way and 
it may be thy way; so let us get together and find that right way. 



APPENDIX. 185 

If any of us do not care to go to Christ just yet for salvation, we 
■can go to Him confidentially for an industrial business principle, as 
■perfect in its adaptation to all our industrial business necessities as 
his air to breathing, his water to drinking, his food to eating, etc. 
ind'ustrial business principle is foiund in His words: "Whatever ye 
would that men should do to you do ye even so to them." You may 
not care or know how to love God — here is a man; love him, com- 
bine with him; do so' today. You may not have meant to hate your 
brother man, but you have made him think that you hated him by 
competing against him, quit it, combine with him, get acquainted 
with the man, find out his needs and give him what he needs — a 
Tiome, employment, your esteem, your confidence; trust him that 
he may trust you; give him a home that you may keep yours or get 
a home of your very own; give him employment that you may have 
employment; give hfm your confidence that you may have his confi- 
dence'; treat him as a man that he will treat you as a man; take him 
in as a stockholder that he may accept you as a stockholder — if he 
can afiford to do so, you can, be yooi rich or poor. The secret in 
getting together is found in getting together; in being goodi, is to 
work at it. You have recognized your neighbor as an equal citizen; 
now get acquainted with him as a man, a brother; combine with 
him in all industrial procedures that he may combine with you. Be- 
ing so intimately acquainted' with men made in the image of God, 
you will be in better positon to acquaint yourself with Him (Book of 
Job 22: 21). 

We must recognize the rights, yes, even the opinions, of others. 
We seldom know or realize the worth of a thing 
until some one tries to take it from us. If you were rich, would you 
want to be reduced! to poverty? No. If you were poor, would you 
want to be left in your poverty? No. Then do as you would be done 
by, whether poor or rich, in your industrial matters. My real inter- 
est is your real interest, and your real interest is my real interest; 
then why down every man in a trade; why compete, why fight, why 
strike, why lockout. The talented Mr. John Mit«hel, President of 
the United Mine Workers, came nearly advocating it in his speech 
in Chicago. He said he was "not one of those who made war upon 
capital or denounced it; that there was never a time in the past nor 
would there be in the future, when the difiference between the 
laboirer and the capitalist would not be settled if they would but 
come squarely together and tell the truth to each other." You do 
not have to join my church or political party; but to be treated fair 
by another we must needs to be fair to the other, be he poor or 
rich. The People's Industrial Business Combine shows us the way, 
the Christ way, of doing and' of conducting industrial business. 

The right to own property in fee simple is a Saxon idea, but 
every true American of any nationality believes in it; that is what 
they came to America foir, and they will not consent to surrender 
this individual right to municipality. State, or Nation — a home of his 
very own is his ideal. Connected with this, the best way to make a 
living for his family comes to him — a manly satisfaction and a lite 
worth living. We are grateful to those who have advocated govern- 
ment ownership. They have educated the people to see the utility of 
co-operation, the feasibility of a single management of all industrial 
affairs. They have failed, however, to see that political government 
has long ago provided a way for the people to attend to their own 
industrial affairs — the way of corporation. These good people have 
thought that something must be done to stop the growth of com- 
binations and have innocently turned to the political government 
that gave these corporations birth, and is justly proud of her chil- 
idren. A mother cannot turn against her children, especially when 



186 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

she knows that they are right and are only misunderstood. Our 
government ownership friends have not discovered that industrial 
business is not in the domain^ or province of political government 
at all. Political government could not own, in fee simple, from tht 
very nature of things; it takes the man, the individual, to own. We 
do not say, "My dieed runs my farm; my patent owns mv home- 
stead; my city owns, my State owns, my Nation owns. These are 
all figures of speech. It is the man that Hterally owns and political 
government, or the people in their political capacity, devised the 
corporation for the express purpose of putting the man. the individ- 
ual, in possesion of all productive property as his own inherent right, 
only stipulating that in case of war all men and all property are sub- 
ject to the political government; but political government, being 
inanimate, has nevi?r and can never legally or rightfully operate pro- 
ductive property. But so much the better for the people; they can, 
by incorporating and co-operation, do it a thousand times better as 
individuals. 

The "C!hicago Tribune" has recently stated, editorially, that 
there are one million persons in the United States who are drug 
fiends. There are several million more who are tramping towards 
the drunkard's grave, and there are several million more who are 
daily weakening their nervous systems and creating tendencies to 
d'sease by the use of tobacco. There are also millions feasting 
upon more or less diseased flesh. Immorality, crime and insanity 
are all increasing in the same startling proportions. Increasing, did 
he say? If increasing, then the means used to stop it are inefificient, 
no matter what those means are, and! it is only a matter of time 
tmtil ruin runs riot. Hence, how dare we longer refuse a measure 
that will stop it! I declare it boldly and an appeal to your judig- 
ment that the People's Industrial Combine will stop it. There is 
not a point referred to by the "Tribune" but is amenable to business, 
to straight industrial business. Is it not mockery, is it not exasper- 
ating, to set religion at work, to experiment with moral suasion, to 
blame politics, and whine about the selfishness of people? Anything 
und'Cr the sun, but adopting the only measure that can stop it. Re- 
ligion, moTal suasion, politics, each and all are efficient in their re- 
spective field, but it belonigs to industrial business to stop these 
crimes against society, and nothing else can; nothing else is adapted 
to do it, and the Christ of Christian civilization is not going to hold 
a few faithful, religious people, a few moral men and women, a few 
loyal, upright, honest politicians, responsible and let the industrial 
business world go free. Industry must carry its own load and do 
it alone. 

When every girl has a home with a real or adopted mother, and 
that mother released from household drudgery, so that she has time 
to be kind and cultivated! and loving; and every boy skilled in some 
useful employment, ready to d'o his part of the world's work, grow- 
ing up with a real or adopted mother, so as to be able to appreciate 
a wife, both knowing that at marriageable ajge they, by the definite 
planning of society, the larger family, will have a separate home 
piovided for them as surely as tim.e. It is implanted in the heairt of 
every father and mother to so provide for their children if they are 
able, and by the co-operation of the combine they will allbe able. Take 
an added view of the possibilities of this home as a center of purity, 
morality and! Christian culture. I refer to the theater and the church. 
Christian people are forbidden the theater, and why? Is it not 
because of its associations with the immorality of the dance, 
brothel and dive elements — a catering to the obscene, unchaste and 
impure, depriving the church people of the enjoyment of hearing 
the best voices in song, of the best skill in instrumental music, best 



APPENDIX. 187 

athletic performances, etc. This will all be changed by the available 
self-interest of the individuals that go to make up the combine, when 
the good of the theater will be available to the church and the vital 
piety of the church will not be out of place in and will christianize 
the theater. 

I am reminded that self-interest, to be the most powerful 
motive to high end'eavor, must be fairly applied and the failure of 
such application, you may argue, ruins the family like equality of the 
Combine idea, in placing the efficient workman on a par with the in- 
efficient (as a profit sharing, etc.). I claim for the combine idea 
it is not only just but humane (and soi will you when you get away 
from the slavish nature of wages, that you may now think is inev- 
itable or unavoidable, and up to the free and Christian conception of 
dividends). I recognize the law, "If a man does not work neither 
shall .he eat," with which the Combine idea agrees. I recognize 
also another law, that if a man is not loyal to our government, 
neither is he entitled to protection as a citizen. The matter of his 
piotection hinges upon his loyalty and not upon whether he is rich 
or poor. So eating, in the law referred to, must be measured by 
the capacity of the stomach of the woirker and not by his pocket- 
book. That law may prove t6o much to suit some, for it does imply 
that if a man does work he has a right to eat; that cannot be denied 
him by a richer than he. One man is supposed to eat about as much 
as another and has a natural right to enjoy it as well, and needs it 
just as much; so has one loyal citizen a right to protection and 
needs it just as much; so has one citizen an equal right to vote and 
need's it just as much as another. Every man is expected to work 
and properly and completely fill his niche. If he does, is it proper 
to give him one hundred square meals a d^y and another only one; 
or to give him a hundred! votes and another, one; or to declare war, 
if need be, to protect one, and send our regrets for another one? 
No. Then why draw the line on any necessity of life, for he who is 
permitted to control a necessity of my life controls my life, and so- 
ciety, the larger family, has no right to desert me or turn me over 
in my helplessness, to be exploited by another. Incentives are 
proper and right in family life, but to give one what fairly belongs to 
another cannot be an incentive to the other, hence manifestly unfair 
to both; and equality of wealth is the true incentive to family life — it 
is American; it is in harmony with a Republic. 

The argument is, Dividends in any corporation, if great enough 
to pay all the bodily needs of the individual stockholder, actually 
places these individuals on a basis of industrial equality and clearly 
a dividend greater than the bodily meed amounts to a superfluity to 
the stockholder. He can do nothing with this excess of dividends, 
except to squander it or take more stock, and this is folly, for he 
already has enough; any greater accumulation is unnecessary, for tht 
Jaudable objects of accumulation, that 13, laying up for a rainy day, 
have ceased to exist. There can be no more rainy days in industry. 
They are provided for by the Combine. We have a corner on indus- 
trial climate, exactly as we had on the political climate in 1776. 
Every man, rich or poor, high or low, rejoiced over our political 
equality then, have ever since, and will forever, because it was suf- 
ficient. So every man, rich oir poor, high or low, will reoice over 
industrial equality, because it is and forever will be sufficient and 
just enough is enough of anything. 

Custom tuirns boys out at twenty-one. They enter the arena to 
fight, to compete for a living. Nine-tenths of them are brave, good 
boys. They have belonged to the family Combine until now. The 
different members of the family have never found it necessary to 
compete with each other, so they do not know how; they have not 



188 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

learnea to fight. Have you ever asked yourself the question, Why- 
should they ever learn to knock down and drag out like savages? 
Why could they not continue to practice the beautiful training ot 
the ideal home until ripe old age? The two prerogatives of every 
well regulated family, namely, diirecting and restraining are as needful 
the day after the boy is twenty-one as it was the day before he was 
twenty-one; if not, why not? And society, the larger family, should' 
continue with the same kindliness of administration in these family 
prerogatives, restraint and directing. If so, where does competitive 
fiffhting come in? Evidently, nowhere. But the family idea, identi- 
cally the Combine idea, receives the man at twenty-one into a pre- 
pared home, to live over again or continue the family training. 

A tramp is a financial failure. Rockefeller is a financial success. 
The tramp has one vote; Rockefeller has one vote. So they are, in 
a sense, politically equal. If they vote together it counts two votes; 
if against each other nothing. I have in my letter to boys and girls 
shown that in the industrial equality it is not proposed to make men 
equal in all respects. Nobody is so silly as toi argue that political" 
equality makes the tramp and Rockefeller equal. God does not make 
any two men equal, so we need not try. But we have already recog- 
nized the propriety of all men being politically equal, and' we go still 
farther in recognizing the greater propriety in men being indus- 
trially equal— why greater? Becauise we live by eating rather than 
by voting. Combines recognize the equality of stockholders, and 
nobody is injured by it, or calls it unfair any more than political 
equality; rather industrial inequality is notoriously unfair and, like 
monarchy, it must now yield to the fiat of a Republic. The indtus- 
trial self-interest of stockholders in a Combine blends into and 
harmonizes with, and is the natural sequence of self-government. 

Placing Labor and Capital under one management, a laborer 
may say, "Oh, well, that only means that Capital will boss; it always 
has and it always will." On the other hand, the Capitalist, with hair 
on end, "Oh, that only means that Labor will boss, and I am afraid; 
one is as right as the other, and both are wrong." Rivalry in ind!us- 
try is as silly as rivalry in the family, because husband and wife have 
tried rivalry and failed' to live in peace; must they go on and forever 
quarrel? A unique illustration comes to me here: A spirited animal 
attracted special attention on the boulevard, and was bought at a 
high figure. Finally, the buyer discovered that the animal was blind, 
and in a rage went to the seller. The seller meekly said, "Don't 
mention it; I knew it but supposed you would not want anything 
said about it. The animal goes with the confidence of an automobile; 
the driver's eyes are enough." It is a reflection on a man to quarrel 
with his wife; if he had so little sense as to marry a woman with a 
single fault he ought to be ashamed to mention it to her or any one 
else. He may findl it out, but dbn't mention it; the public need nor 
know it. Or if the wife marries a faultless man, she, for shame,.^ 
should never say a word to him or any one else about his faults, for, 
as he was faultless before marriage, she and all these she tells about 
them must know that she made these faults. Don't mention them; 
it is a reflection on you. The same is true respecting capitalists and 
laborers. Capitalists have developed the faults of laborers, if theyhave 
any faults, and laborers are directly responsible for any faults of 
capitalists. The bonds between them are indissolvable, and any 
rivalry is no longer to be thought of, any more than rivalry betweeir 
wife and husband. Both must be under one management, not wife 
management or husband management, but family management; not 
labor management, not capital management, but industrial manage- 
ment — the management of the People's Industrial Combine. 

General Sherman just before the close of the great war over 



APPENDIX. 189 

Negro slavery, gathered together the flower of the Western Army 
preparatory to his "march to the sea." Suppose some one had 
said, "General, what do you propose to do?" "Do? Why I propose 
to crush the life out of this rebellion." "But how?" "Why, I pro- 
pose," replies the General, "to rendezvous my army here in North- 
ern Georgia, and force these rebels to terms." "But how?" "Well, 
if they don't come to my terms, why, my whole army will just quit, 
we will go on a strike and will' not do a thimg until they surrender." 
It is pitable, but a fact that Labor, with the power to overcome eveiry 
obstacle in the march to a greater victory than "marching through 
Georgia," only opposes to capital a strike, a quit. It is not only a 
poor way, but it is no way at all. Do not get offended at these 
plain words. You know that if I were a capitalist and only taking the 
part of capitalists, that I would not be telling you these things. I 
would not take the trouble to tell you of your folly any more than 
the Confederate General would' have taken the trouble to tell Gen- 
ral Sherman that quitting, striking, was folly. There was a sensible 
way for Sherman to act and he acted. There is a sensible way for 
laborers to act, and that is to go forward into their just possession 
of all property; and' the way to the Combine is ten times plainer 
than Sherman's way to the sea. Sherman not only saw what ought 
to 'be done, but he diid it. Soi we must not be content with seeing 
what ought to be done, but we must do it. 

Political parties, distinctly political, may be all right. We are not 
discussing politics while in its proper sphere, but when we discover 
it, like a stray dog after sheep, it is plainly so much' matter out of 
place and deserves the fate of the dog found with wool in his teeth. 
It is absolutely painful to self-respecting citizens to see political 
parties proposing to do everything industrial when it can do abso- 
lutely nothing. It is pitiable, but apparently true, that nothing but 
common sense is left out of their propositions except that it may be 
clean politics and loyalty, so busy have politicians become, with 
fees and salaries and tariffs and protection of infant industries and 
strikes and lockouts and injunctions and trusts, etc., all out of the 
domain of politics and as clearly in the domain of industry, that is, 
the people in their corporate capacity, the People's Industrial Com- 
bine. 

I am aware of the fact that I have galloped! through this book 
much like Paul Revere (of Revolutionary times) did, through the 
country side and for the same purpose — "to arou,'.e the people." He 
paid little attention to his horsemanship, and the people paid less; 
it made so little difference who he was. It was the matter of his 
message that thrilled both him and the people. I have paid, per- 
haps, too little attention to elegance of d'iction in my haste to arouse 
the people, yet I have faith in my endeavor. The common people 
heard him and the common people will hear me. The episode that 
followed his awakening put these co'mmon people in power; and we 
have that power yet, and though this expression of power, this 
political form of power is not (as has been demonstrated in the 
light of subsequent events) adapted to the management of indus- 
trial affairs, yet that same element of power, seen in the ability of 
the people to govern themselves politically, is now available for us as 
a people in our corporate capacity, and shows conclusively that we 
can govern ourselves industrially. Our forefathers demonstrated the 
fact that we did not need, had no use for a political king, so now, we^ 
their sons, are competent to demonstrate that we do not need a 
capitalist to measure out to us industrial oppression, and that indtus- 
trial equality today is far more kind, pertinent, necessary, permis- 
sible, than equality of votes, citizenship, law, order. The proposed 
proper adjustment of property will speedily demonstrate; in fact, it 



190 THE COMBINE IDEA. 

is all that is left us, but. thankfully, it is enough; it is abundantly 
enough. We are truly living in marvelous times. Two yeairs ago, 
when we began writing this book, the vast majority of the people 
thought that all industrial affairs were amenable to pohtical gov- 
ernment, and that it was the fatdt of politics rather than its inability 
to control corporations. Many still hold to this opinion in the face 
of honest effort on the part of Congress and the President to give 
the people industrial irelief, but it is now beginning to dawn upon the 
people that even the President is not a big man, that can hold in- 
dustry in his hand, as a child does a toy; even corporations them- 
selves feared his power, but now no corporation "is so poor as to 
do him reverence." It has been argued that as he was commandier- 
in-chief of all our armies and navies, and could control all property 
for milit.iiry purposes, thus commanding afl men and their money, 
then surely he can take Mr. Rockefeller by the nap of the neck, 
metaphorically speaking, and put him down, and he will "stay, put." 
Not so. It has been and is being suspected that there is some subtile 
element, some industrial force of gravity, that gives weight to Mr. 
Rockefeller that even Roosevelt could not lift. Yet, as we have 
repeatedly said that Prcsid'ents and Congress have earnestly and 
honestly tried and failed, and it is being clearly seen that corpora- 
tions have a legal right to say to President, Congresses and courts, 
"Thus far, gentlemen, shalt thou go and no farther." When we 
come to think of it, a State, through its Secretary, cannot give five 
men the right to do a certain industrial matteir, such as to build a 
factory, a railroad, etc., and then usurp the right to run it for them. 
A State clearly cannot give a right away and keep it, so if corpora- 
tions, at work legally, are not amenable to existing law, and any 
infringement upon corporate rights are as sacred as infringements 
upon individual rights, hence logically will be unconstitutional; so 
we wilt idbwn, in presence of the great gravity of o.ur delima, which 
appeals tO' the very life of the American people. The revealed fact 
that Rockefeller, PTerpont Morgan, and corporations everywhere are 
doing all that they want to do legally, according to constitutional 
law. This fact is the most appalling and frightful revelation ever 
made to us as American freemen. Many of us have been suspecting 
its existence for years, but it remained for the Roosevelt commis- 
sion to prove it. That coroner-like inquest, after sitting for three 
months on the dead body of Political-indlustry, brought in a verdict 
that the decased came to its death by natural causes. No wondef 
that the humiliated, disheartened people stand agap, spell-bound, 
amazed; and in the stillness of the dead, ask, with bated breath in 
pleading tones. What shall we do? It was a last extremity that 
caused the President to empanel this jury, hoping that its findings 
would reveal some fact of this mysterious industrial death, that 
would give tc political government, through its courts, its Congress, 
or its President, some jurisdiction over corporations. I say again 
that nothing in the annals of American history has shown the utter 
helplessness and inability of politics to manage industrial affairs. 
This great commission was the first of its kind and will probably be 
the last. Their deliberations were only advisory; it did not and 
could not carry with it the force of law. They have only advised the 
lion to be mare mild and lamblike and the lamb to be more fierce 
and lionlike and' fight a little longer and' die a little harder; but die 
you must. Irony, to be sure, but true to the letter. I could not 
have the heart to invite you to this Politico-Industrial funeral were 
it not to show you the gladsome life beyond. Thousands of our live 
men, dead to competition, are still living and alive to combinations, 
and so have their industrial happiness guaranteed to them by the 
Combine. Those witnesses that Mr. Mitchel introduced served but 



APPENDIX. 191 

to add torture to a case that had been already proven over and 
over again during the long, long night of industrial darkness, but 
this darkest hour portends the day — the day when the people, all 
the people, are as industriously equal as we are now politically 
equal. There different ways and perhaps better methods of 
procedtire, but this is one way: Let the Secretary, Mr. Cor- 
telyou, now a Cabinet officer, Department of Commerce — signifi- 
cant, but perhaps better to be called Department of Industry — 
recommend! (his recommendation cairries law behind it, if need be) 
that the Secretary of each State issue corporation papers to the 
whole people of that State upon their application, much as he now 
does to any five men. Thus the people may become legally incor- 
porated and ready for business, and that without any political 
estrangement or special political action. Of course, to prevent any 
possibility of any unfriendly legislation, it is immediately necessary 
that the voters vote for no man for any legislative olBce who has not 
obligated himself in writing to aid the speedy inauguration of the 
People's Industrial Combine. The truths I have tried to make agree- 
able to the rich as well as the poor, to the wise as well as the igno- 
rant, are inexhaustible in their agreeable resources, and as I climb 
to a high altitude from which to take a new prospective, still they 
mount and the possibilities of the Combine adds new beauties as 
we come into the possession of those nearest us; there is yet more 
beyond. 




DEO 19 ISCH 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 





013 608 452 5 • 



